


Keep the Home Fires (Burning)

by natsinator



Series: A Wheel Inside a Wheel [6]
Category: Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu | Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Genre: Canon-Typical Homophobia, Crossdressing, F/M, Family Issues, Implied miscarriage, Infidelity, M/M, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Reuenthal's Problems Syndrome, This Whole Thing Smacks Of Gender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29811993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natsinator/pseuds/natsinator
Summary: Three soldiers. Two bodies to be buried. One haunted house.[Written for "A Momentary Ripple in the Stream" fanzine <3]------------This story takes place immediately after the events of "Servants of the Pharaoh". You really have to read that one before this will make any sense at all.
Relationships: Evangelin Mittermeyer/Wolfgang Mittermeyer, Magdalena von Westfalen/Yang Wenli, Oskar von Reuenthal/Yang Wenli, Wolfgang Mittermeyer/Oskar von Reuenthal
Series: A Wheel Inside a Wheel [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1650067
Comments: 12
Kudos: 14





	1. With Your Grandfather in the Ground

_ June 486 I.C., Odin _

Visiting the Mariendorf estate always gave Yang the distinct feeling of returning home again, even though he had no right to feel that way. 

He had come over for Hilde’s “graduation” party. Though she had never been formally enrolled as a student at the Imperial Officers’ Academy, and had received no diploma and commission as an officer, she had managed to sneak, beg, or plead her way into enough classes that she was, for all intents and purposes, as educated as the rest of the graduating class. Hilde would begin attending Odin National University in the fall, one of the few female students who had been admitted that year. The little lunch party, set up out on the green summer lawn, was as much to celebrate that beginning as it was to celebrate the end of her time at the IOA. 

When Yang walked across the grass to the delightful little setup, white tablecloth fluttering over the well-spread picnic table, he realized he was late. The count and Hilde were already sitting, as well as Sub-Lieutenant Kircheis and a guest that Yang didn’t recognize. Hilde and Kircheis stood up to greet him as he approached the table, Kircheis giving a short salute that Yang returned (if a little lazily.) 

“Hank!” Hilde said with a wide smile. “I’m so glad you could come!”

“Sorry I’m late,” Yang said, rubbing the back of his head. He had no excuse, so he didn’t follow that statement up with anything other than an apologetic smile. He nodded his hello to the count. “Good afternoon, Count Mariendorf, Kircheis.” 

“Afternoon, Leigh.”

“Have you met Martin?” Hilde asked.

“No, I have not had that honor,” Yang said.

Martin, a skinny young man probably a few years older than Hilde, stood as Hilde said, “Hank, this is Martin Bufholtz. Martin, this is Captain Hank von Leigh.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you, sir,” Martin said, sticking out his hand to shake.

“Only good things, I hope,” Yang said.

“Interesting ones, for sure,” Martin said.

“You’re the friend who quotes poetry, aren’t you?” Yang asked.

Martin flushed. “I don’t know of anyone else who fits the bill, so I suppose I must be.”

“It’s good to finally meet you,” Yang said. He actually owed Martin a debt, for his help during Mittermeyer’s rescue from prison, but that wasn’t something that could be discussed in front of Count Mariendorf, so Yang just smiled at him, in a way that he hoped communicated his gratitude. Martin seemed startled, then smiled back.

They all settled back down around the picnic table.

“I believe that I should be congratulating you, Captain,” the count said.

Yang was momentarily flustered. “Oh, well, the promotion just comes from moving jobs. It’s not like I’ve done much to warrant it— it’s policy to promote anyone who taught at the IOA for a few years when they leave.”

“You’ve managed to turn out a fine crop of students,” Franz said. “That’s as deserving of a promotion as anything.”

“Thank you, sir,” Yang said. “It’s been a pleasure, honestly.” And he smiled at Hilde and Kircheis.

“You’re both working for Duke Braunschweig now, Kircheis was telling me?”

“Yes, sir,” Yang said. “I’m one of his staff officers. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing, but I’m sure I’ll find out soon enough.”

“Do you like the duke?” The question was a pointed one, and Hilde, Kircheis, and Martin all listened closely to Yang’s answer.

“I haven’t worked under him for more than a week,” Yang said. “But Princess Amarie has been very generous to me, if nothing else. I don’t dislike him, certainly.” This was about the most even keel answer that Yang could give. He suspected that Franz would ask him that question again, in private, and he would be expected to give a more honest reckoning. As the Kaiser grew older, and looked less and less like he was going to name a successor, the ranks of the nobles were growing restless, contemplating throwing their support behind either Duke Braunschweig or Marquis Littenheim.

“I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to develop your opinion, working so closely with him.”

“I’m sure I will,” Yang said.

“Will you miss the IOA?”

“If I’m being honest, sir, I am holding out hope that I’ll be able to return to teaching there eventually. So I’m trying not to miss it too much.”

“Do you know who’s taking over the upper level practicum?” Kircheis asked.

“I recommended Captain von Rechendorf, but I don’t know if he’ll take up the position.”

“I’m sure it won’t be as good without you,” Hilde said.

“I’m not anything special.”

There were various noises of protest from Hilde and Kircheis at that, which made the count laugh. They settled down to eat the sandwiches and lemonade and cake that had been laid out for them, and the conversation passed about nothing for a while.

“Are you looking forward to attending ONU?” Yang asked Hilde as he wiped his fingers on his napkin, finishing his sandwich.

“I suppose,” Hilde said. “I don’t think I’ll like it as much as the IOA, but Martin’s promised to introduce me to everyone worth knowing, so I have that to look forward to, at least.”

“What do you study again, Herr Bufholtz?” Yang asked.

“Classics,” Martin said.

“A very worthwhile field,” Yang said. But he turned to Hilde. “You’re not studying classics, are you?”

“No,” she said. “Law.”

“Do they admit women to the bar?” Yang asked.

“No,” the count said. Hilde scowled. “But it’s still a fine subject to study, and the knowledge of it won’t hurt when she inherits from me. I will admit that my duties in the Ministry of the Interior have kept me more occupied with the Empire’s business than I have been with the Mariendorf family holdings. I never really considered myself an expert on how to run the estates, so I leave that to people who know better than I do.” He shook his head, then smiled warmly at his daughter. “But Hilde, I’m sure, will be able to do a far better job of it than I have.”

Martin and Kircheis, neither of whom had any estates to speak of, remained silent, Kircheis with his placid smile, and Martin looking uncomfortably at Hilde. 

“Well,” Yang said, “You never know— maybe since we’re sure to have a kaiserin in a few years, things might start changing for the better. You could graduate just in time to be the first woman judge, later in your career.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you like ONU, Herr Bufholtz?”

“Yes, sir,” Martin said. “I’ll be sad to leave it when I graduate.”

“You could get a doctorate.”

Martin frowned. “I’m afraid I’m not exempt from compulsory service, so I’ll have to leave do that before I could.”

Yang nodded. “I don’t recall if you ever told me, Count Mariendorf, did you do compulsory service?”

“No, I was already working in the Ministry of the Interior at the time, so I was exempt,” he said. “I think my mother was glad of it; I was an only child, so the family’s future would have been imperiled if I hadn’t been.”

Everyone around the table could read between the lines of that statement; it was noble privilege that exempted people from service more often than not. The count acknowledged that in the politest way that he could, but in present company there was no way to avoid ruffling Martin’s feathers, and a frown lingered on his face.

Hilde spoke up, “If I had been a man, I would be in the fleet. It’s only fair.”

Franz looked at Yang with a melancholy expression behind Hilde’s back. 

“Fraulein Mariendorf,” Martin said, “It’s not that I begrudge anyone getting out of compulsory service. I wish that the service was unnecessary, and certainly not compulsory.”

“Martin,” Kircheis said, then trailed off.

Yang smiled, trying to allay the sudden tension. “I agree with you, Herr Bufholtz. The galaxy would be a much more pleasant place, if we lived in peace.”

“Then why are you still in the fleet?”

Kircheis was deeply uncomfortable, now, looking at Yang apologetically.

Yang rubbed the back of his head. “I can’t explain my reasons to myself in a satisfactory way,” Yang said. “So I’m afraid that I won’t be able to explain them to anyone else, either. I like to believe that I can do more good within the fleet than I can out of it. At least at the IOA, I tried to teach my students to be good leaders, so that as few people need to die in this war as possible…” He shrugged. “I suppose time will have to tell if I succeeded or not, or if it was a worthwhile quest. It’s not something that I can accurately judge from where I stand.”

“And now that you’re working for Duke Braunschweig?”

“Unfortunately, I owe the duke a debt of gratitude,” Yang said, blunt. “But I still hope I can do some good under him.”

Martin seemed unsatisfied with this answer, but Hilde said, “Come on, Martin, Hank is… Good. And you’re not mad at Sieg for being in the fleet.”

Kircheis flushed as red as his hair. 

“Extenuating circumstances,” Martin said.

“Do tell?” the count asked.

Yang, who knew exactly what Kircheis’ difficult story was, intervened with a lie. “Much the same as myself, sir,” Yang said. “The IOA is unfortunately the best place to get an education, while paying with nothing but a few years of your life.”

“Or all of it,” Martin said.

“Well,” Franz said, “I’m certainly grateful that Hilde managed to get her education there for free.”

“Just as long as she makes good use of it,” Yang said, which made Hilde grin at him. “I’m sure some of your ONU coursework will be too easy for you.”

“I don’t know,” Hilde said. “I’m sure it will have its challenges. And it will be nice to be a real student.”

“That’s true.”

Hilde glanced at Martin and Kircheis, both of whom looked uncomfortable for different reasons. “Are you done eating?” she asked. “I think I’d like to go on a bit of a walk, for digestion, if you’d like to be my escorts.”

Kircheis glanced at the count for permission, who waved his hand with a smile.

“Of course, Fraulein,” Kircheis said.

So the three young people stood up, and, with Kircheis in the middle, headed off away from the picnic table. They didn’t get very far before Yang could hear Hilde’s voice piping up, saying, “I won’t tolerate you being rude to Hank, you know.” But then they vanished into the pine trees and he lost sight and sound of them.

“Youth,” the count said, fondness evident in his voice. “Wasn’t so long ago that you were a sub-lieutenant, was it?”

“Almost a decade,” Yang said.

“Time does fly.” Franz sipped his lemonade and looked out across the lawn. “You still keep in touch with Oskar, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Yang said. “The rear admiral and I are good friends.”

“Is he on Odin?”

“No, he’s stationed at Iserlohn. Why do you ask?”

Franz reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded newspaper clipping, which he handed to Yang. “His grandfather died.”

“Count Marbach?” Yang asked, surprised.

“Yes.”

“I met him, once.” Yang examined the obituary, showing a stiff picture of a man who looked somewhat like Reuenthal, only with sixty more years of age in his face. 

“The funeral is this Friday. I was only wondering if Oskar was planning to attend.”

“I don’t think he’d be able to get here from Iserlohn on time,” Yang said. “It’s a bit of a journey. And even if he could…”

“They never made up their differences, I assume?”

“I’m not even sure what the differences were,” Yang said. “I think Reuenthal prefers to keep his family at arms’ length, at best. And the one time I met Count Marbach, he didn’t seem interested in Reuenthal, either.”

Franz shook his head. “I suppose I’m going to have to go to my own grave knowing that I didn’t do as much to smooth that over as I could.”

“I don’t think Reuenthal would have wanted you to try,” Yang said. “He’s very proud of being independent.”

“Still… It would have been nice for him to inherit. And a man should have a family.”

They were silent for a second. Yang had no idea how to respond, as he had no family to speak of, something that the count had never pressed him on, despite the fact that Yang had spent most of his summers and holidays leeching off of the Mariendorf family generosity. He had had no home to go to, aside from the one the Mariendorfs had let him be a guest in. “Are you going to go to the funeral?” Yang asked after a second.

“Yes. I did know him, and his wife.”

“I should come,” Yang said.

“Why?”

The feeling that had spurred Yang to make that pronouncement was a complicated one, driven as much by his own feelings about failing to help Reuenthal repair the relationship between him and his grandfather as anything else. He thought that Reuenthal should have some representation at the funeral, even if that was only in the form of Yang Wen-li, who should have had nothing to do with him. “He was friends with the Kaiser,” Yang said. “So he’ll probably be there.”

“Looking to speak with him about Duke Braunschweig?”

“I don’t presume to have any claim to the Kaiser’s time,” Yang said. “But he has been supportive of me in the past. I would like to make sure I haven’t ruined that by choosing which of his sons-in-law to support for the throne.”

“You would have had to choose eventually.”

“True.”

“What do you think of Braunschweig? I would like to think you haven’t tied yourself to a sinking ship.”

Yang sighed. “I don’t think he likes me, on a personal level,” Yang said. “But he’s neither stupid nor frivolous. He’s willing to cut bargains. And I do like Princess Amarie, as much as one can like Princess Amarie— and she’s a powerhouse in her own right. I don’t know.”

“And when it comes to squaring off with Littenheim?”

“Braunschweig I think has more military experience, and more connections in the fleet. I don’t know Littenheim personally, though. I’ve never spoken with him.” Yang shook his head.

“Should I support him?” Mariendorf asked.

“At the very least, wait until the Kaiser is dead before you say anything one way or the other. I wish I could have kept out of it.”

“What is it that made you join up with him?” Franz asked. “It must have been quite something to get you out of the IOA.”

“I’m surprised you hadn’t heard.”

“I’m curious, if it’s not a secret.”

“No, no,” Yang said, which wasn’t quite the truth. He told as much of the story as he could to the count.

“I see,” the count said, when he had finished. “It surprises me that the duke would be willing to pay for the life of a rear admiral with the service of a captain.”

Yang glanced away. “That business at Iserlohn convinced him that I have value,” he said. “I don’t know if I would have made that same trade, if I was in his place, but I had to offer him something.”

“You do have value, Leigh,” Franz said. “I don’t think that Braunschweig made a wrong choice, exactly.”

Yang rubbed the back of his head. “Don’t tell me you’ll support Braunschweig just because he has me working for him.”

“I wouldn’t want us to be on different sides.”

“My advice would be to stay out of it as best you can. It’s not going to be pretty, no matter what happens.”

“I think the unfortunate thing about having some status around here is that I won’t have the luxury of staying out of it,” Franz said. “The land I own— even if I don’t administrate it personally— I have some responsibility to the people who live there, to the soldiers who come from my estate. I send them to the crown— but if the crown ceases to be a functioning entity…”

“Muckenburger is going to stay out of it,” Yang said firmly. “He’s… I don’t exactly trust him, but he is a soldier first and a noble second. I think he understands what will have to be done to stop— well, I don’t think there will be a military coup, in the truest sense.”

Franz chuckled. “No, just one where nobles take their own armed forces and fight to the death.”

“I suppose that’s the one good thing about the way the fleet is organized,” Yang said. “The military itself is too factional to unify and wield its own power.”

“Small blessings,” Franz said.

Yang shook his head ruefully. “I’m starting to sound like Maggie, talking like that.”

“How is the Baroness Westpfale?”

“Bored, mostly,” Yang said. “But other than that, fine.”

“Hilde would probably enjoy seeing her, sometime.”

“I think that she’s doing her best not to be seen as a bad influence on the young ladies of the court.”

Franz gave Yang a knowing look. “I think that Hilde and the other young ladies of the court have mutually given each other up, so I would tell Baroness Westpfale to not worry about that.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Her time at the IOA was an open secret that doesn’t precisely reflect well upon her.” Franz shook his head. “There’s a reason why Sub-lieutenant Kircheis and Herr Bufholtz are her friends, and not any titled women. And the social invites she receives are from some of the rest of the IOA fellows.”

“Honestly, sir, I’m glad she was able to make friends with them. I don’t know if that’s a problem.”

“It’s not,” Franz said. “She’s happy, and that’s what matters. But she’s not being invited to ladies’ events. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I’ll tell Maggie to take her to the ballet,” Yang said. He looked away for a moment. “Sir, can I ask your advice?”

“Of course. Though I don’t know how much I’ll be able to give.”

“Should I ask Maggie to marry me?”

The count looked at Yang. “Do you want to marry her?”

“That’s a difficult question to answer, sir,” Yang said.

“Leigh— Hank— when I asked Amelie to marry me, it was the thing I wanted most in the world. I didn’t have a single doubt about it in my mind. I understand that the situation with Baroness Westpfale might be… different… but still, I wouldn’t want to tell you to marry someone if it wasn’t going to make you happy. Do you love her?”

“She’s the one of the closest friends I have.”

“And what makes you think about marrying her?”

“She’s decided she wants me to,” Yang said. “Well, she decided that a long time ago, but I think she was mostly joking back then. But now it would solve more problems than it would cause, so…” He trailed off, rubbing the back of his head. “I think we have more respectability put together than either of us have apart.”

That made the count chuckle. “And would it make you happy, being married to her?”

“I don’t think it would fundamentally change much about the way we see each other,” Yang said. “But it makes me happy to see her now, and I think the same is true for her. So, yes, I think.”

“It’s hard to give you advice one way or the other,” the count said. “I understand, or I think I understand, what the situation is. It’s not precisely usual.”

“What ever is, sir?”

That made the count laugh. “You don’t ever think that you’re going to meet a different woman who you’d want to marry more, do you?”

“I… How is anyone supposed to know that, sir?”

“Have you played the field at all?”

Yang flushed. “Not particularly. I don’t think most women would be happy to have me around. Maggie only was interested in me in the first place to make her mother mad.”

“That may have been somewhat true when you were a student,” Franz said. “But you’re a man with status now. You work for Duke Braunschweig, you’ll probably be a flag officer before you’re thirty, you do have a name from that Iserlohn business— none of that is nothing, Leigh. If you wanted to find someone else, you could. The question is, do you want to?”

“I—”

The count’s voice was gentle, even though the smile on his face was wry. “Like I said, I understand. I’m not going to pry. It’s just something that’s worth thinking about.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Franz leaned back in his seat. “If you want my blessing to marry Baroness Westpfale, though I have no right to give it, you can certainly have it.”

“Oh,” Yang said. “Thank you.”

* * *

The day of Count Marbach’s funeral was drizzly and cold, despite it being summer, but the inside of the temple where the service was being held was dark and hot. Yang had never attended a religious ceremony like this. The atmosphere was very different from Countess Mariendorf’s funeral, which was Yang’s only point of comparison. He stood next to Count Mariendorf in the crowded room and sweated, feeling his uniform itch on his back. 

The coffin was at the front of the room, open and surrounded by lit candles. It was eerie to see the corpse there, and Yang was reminded unpleasantly of Reuenthal in the way it was made up and lit, some of the wrinkles disappearing to create a harsh silhouette of a face. 

Although the dead count should have been the focus of attention, Yang could see everyone in the room flicking glances up to the front where Kaiser Friedrich IV stood with his entourage. The Kaiser looked to be in bad shape, though perhaps that was again due to the smoky dimness of the room, and the fact that he was mourning a close friend. Yang was no exception to this observation, and he kept looking over at the Kaiser, paying little attention to the service itself.

For some reason, Kaiser Friedrich had brought his grandson with him, the young Erwin Joseph. He kept fidgeting and whispering in the ear of the servant who was minding him, and the Kaiser didn’t spare him much attention. Seeing Erwin Joseph always put a weird pang in Yang’s heart, and this time was no exception. The boy was fatherless and motherless, and Yang was not completely innocent in that.

There weren’t any long speeches at this funeral, as it was mostly a religious affair. The officiant spoke, and then there was a traditional sacrifice— a bird— which made Erwin Joseph cry loudly enough that his minder carried him out of the hall, leaving the Kaiser relatively alone.

Count Mariendorf leaned over towards Yang and whispered, “Are you going to talk to him?”

“Maybe now isn’t the time,” Yang whispered back. “If he sees me and wants to talk…”

“It’s what you came for, isn’t it?” The count nudged his elbow. “Go outside. Pay your respects to the one grandchild who has no chance of becoming Kaiser.”

“Yes, sir,” Yang said, and then edged his way uncomfortably past the count, out of the dark hall. He walked out onto the temple’s shaded entrance, where Erwin Joseph’s minder was standing with the young boy, allowing him to stick his arm out into the drizzling rain, which made him laugh every time a particularly fat and cold droplet landed on his chubby hand. Erwin’s minder looked at Yang with some suspicion, but Yang smiled placidly and leaned against one of the nearby pillars. He wished he had the excuse of being a smoker, to linger out here, but he had none.

Eventually, Erwin Joseph noticed Yang and stared at him.

“Good morning, young sir,” Yang said, and saluted, which made the boy laugh.

“Who are you?”

“Captain Leigh,” Yang said. He crouched down so that he could be at the same level as the boy and shake hands. Erwin Joseph’s hand was wet with rainwater, and sticky with something unidentifiable. Figuring that children liked to be asked questions, he asked, “What’s your name?”

“Erwin.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Erwin.” Yang studied him. “Did you know, I knew your mother.”

“I don’t have a mother,” the boy said, confused. “Just grandpa.”

Yang nodded solemnly. “The thing about mothers, young sir, is that everyone has one, whether she’s around or not.”

Erwin Joseph’s brow furrowed as he considered this, and then he shook his head. Yang smiled. Erwin seemed about to say something when the heavy double doors swung open, and the Kaiser stepped out, along with a few members of his entourage. Yang immediately stood to salute, and Erwin ran over to the Kaiser, who ruffled his hair.

Kaiser Friedrich was nonplussed to see Yang, and then a slight frown settled onto his face, one that made Yang internally wince.

“It pains me to say this, Captain von Leigh, but I don’t think it’s appropriate for you to be alone with my grandson, now that you work for my son-in-law.”

That was about as brutal of a statement of how the Kaiser viewed Yang’s new loyalties, such as they were, as he would get. And he hadn’t even had to ask for it. “It’s not exactly by choice, Your Majesty,” Yang said. “But I understand.”

The Kaiser picked up Erwin Joseph, who squirmed a little. “Not like this little troublemaker is in much danger, I suppose. It would be your cousin Sabine who has to worry, isn’t it?” he said. Erwin, who clearly didn’t understand the context, just giggled.

Yang was silent for a second, wondering if the Kaiser would address him again. He did, after he handed Erwin to his nursemaid. “What are you doing here, Leigh?”

“Count Marbach was Rear Admiral von Reuenthal’s grandfather,” Yang said. “Since the rear admiral is a good friend of mine, and he couldn’t make it from his post to attend, I thought I should come in his stead.”

“I see.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, Your Majesty. I understand that you and the count were good friends.”

“Yes,” the Kaiser said.

“May I ask how you knew each other?”

“We went to university together,” the Kaiser said. “I believe we encouraged the worst of each other’s bad habits— gambling, drinking, those kinds of things. When my father threatened to disown me over it, he offered me a place in his own home.” He let out a dark chuckle. “But that was before my brothers…” And then he shook his head. “Old, sad history.”

“Maybe someday it will be written about,” Yang said.

“Long after I’m gone, I hope,” the Kaiser said. “And I don’t see why anyone but myself should care. We were friends, and now he’s gone to Valhalla, or hell, or wherever it is he’s off to. I’m sure I’ll be joining him soon enough.”

“I hope not, Your Majesty.”

Again, the dark chuckle. “You may be the only one.”

“Erwin Joseph would be sad.”

“Perhaps.” The Kaiser gave the boy in the nursemaid’s arms a glance. “I wonder what is to become of him.”

Yang wanted to say many things: the practical suggestion to give the boy a modest inheritance and then send him away to a remote planet until the political situation stabilized, and the impractical but heartfelt offer to make sure that nothing happened to him. But instead he just said, “I don’t know.”

“He looks just like Ludwig, when he was that age,” the Kaiser said, very melancholy. “I’ve often wished that I did not live long enough to bury my own son.”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, I’m sure you are.” He sighed. “I understand that sides will have to be chosen, Leigh. But I had thought you, at least, might avoid it.”

“Why would you think that?”

“If I recall, the first day I met you, you ended up nearly bleeding to death because people hated you for being a foreigner. I didn’t expect that to change so much that my son-in-law would be willing to take you into his confidences.”

“I doubt I’m in his confidences,” Yang said. “At best, he sees me as a tool.”

“Perhaps.” He gave Yang a considering look. “Was there something you wanted to say to me, Leigh?”

“Nothing that we haven’t already discussed.”

The Kaiser nodded. “I doubt we’ll have much reason to see each other again,” he said.

“I understand, Your Majesty,” Yang said. Despite the fact that there were many things about Kaiser Friedrich that Yang hated, losing his favor felt like a blow. He tried to take it in stride.

“You should get around to publishing your book, by the way.”

“I’ll try,” Yang said. “Thank you for looking at it when you did.”

“You’re about to have a front row seat to my family eating itself alive,” the Kaiser said, ignoring Yang’s thanks. “You’ll have plenty of material for a sequel.”

“History can’t be written by the people who live it,” Yang said. “It’s everybody else who will end up casting their judgement on—” he wanted to say himself, to say ‘us’, but then that all would have felt too conceited— “this time.”

“That’s another thing I’m glad I won’t live to see, then,” the Kaiser said. “Goodbye, Leigh.”

“Goodbye, Your Majesty,” Yang said, and bowed.

The Kaiser stepped out into the rain, one of his attendants hurrying to put an umbrella up over his head. He walked slowly out to his car, followed by his entourage and Erwin Joseph, who took every possible opportunity to splash into puddles. Yang watched them go, then returned to the inside of the temple, where everyone was heading in a great crowd, following the coffin, through the back doors to the cemetery outside.

Yang found Count Mariendorf in the bustle, right before they squeezed through the doors outside.

“Did you talk to him?” the count asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Was it a good conversation?”

“The conversation was good,” Yang said. “The news was not.”

“I see.”

The burial itself was a sad and muddy affair, and Yang was worried that he was going to slip and fall headfirst into the hole dug for the coffin as he tossed in the flower he had been given to hold. As he processed past the grave, he looked at the names on the adjoining headstones, all members of the Marbach family. One grave stood out, not having a last name, engraved with just a first name, Maria, and dates of birth and death.

“Do you know who that is?” Yang asked Count Mariendorf in a whisper.

“Oskar’s mother. But she’s not actually buried there.”

“Where is she buried?”

“In the von Reuenthal plot,” the count said, and shuffled Yang away.

He couldn’t stop glancing over at the strange headstone marking the empty grave for the rest of the service. 

Count Mariendorf gave Yang a ride home, a mostly silent drive, both of them fairly contemplative. When they arrived at Yang’s apartment, the count idled the car for a moment, and looked over at Yang.

“I was thinking about our conversation from the other day,” the count said.

“Yes, sir?” Yang asked. “What about it in particular?”

“What you asked about Baroness Westpfale. Have you given that any further thought?”

“I have been thinking about it,” Yang said. “I think I’ll think about it a little more, and maybe try to broach the subject with her at some point— there’s a lot to consider. I’ll probably sit on it for a couple months.”

The count nodded. He reached across the car and opened the glovebox, pulling out a small black box. He held it out to Yang, who hesitantly took it.

“This was my grandmother’s,” the count said. “Strange, strange woman. But I think I was her favorite grandchild.”

Yang opened the box, revealing a beautiful gold engagement ring, with one ruby surrounded by tiny diamonds. “I can’t take this, sir,” Yang said. “You should save it for Hilde.” He realized belatedly that this didn’t make sense as a thing to say; there was no reason that Hilde would have to give someone an engagement ring.

“Hilde— if she ever wants something like that— can have Amelie’s engagement ring. As it stands, this one isn’t doing anyone any good sitting in a box in my house.” He looked at Yang. “It would make me happy to know that it’s going to you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Yang said. “I don’t really know what to say— you’re always too generous to me.”

The count squeezed Yang’s shoulder. “If I had had a son, I would have wanted one like you. That’s all.”

“I— thank you.” His throat felt thick, difficult to get the words out.

The count nodded. “Have a nice night, Hank.”

“You too, sir,” Yang said.

* * *

The whole experience of the funeral left Yang with a strange and sour feeling. Although it wasn’t his business in the least, the way that Reuenthal’s mother had been stripped of her last name— and in some ways her body— to have a headstone in the Marbach family plot disturbed him.

Maybe it was because he suspected that, working for Duke Braunschweig, his chances of dying in space were about to increase dramatically. And, if and when that happened, what he himself would be left with would be a headstone over an empty grave, bearing a name that didn’t really belong to him. He had been Hank von Leigh for well over a decade, and he had thought that he had come to terms with that being the official record of himself, but maybe he had been lying.

And he thought of his father’s gravestone on Phezzan, with the right name but just as little body. He couldn’t set foot on Phezzan again, but that didn’t stop him from wishing that he could go see it, even though there was as little buried there as there was of Reuenthal’s mother in hers.

Later that night, in his room, Yang pulled out some of the research materials that he had pored over while writing his book, ones that he hadn’t needed to touch in some time. This was, perhaps, invading Reuenthal’s privacy, but Reuenthal wasn’t on the planet, and wouldn’t ever have to know that Yang was considering visiting his mother’s grave.

Yang couldn’t have exactly explained the instinct that caused him to look up where it was, and then write down the location, not far from the capital. 

On a whim, he also typed ‘von Leigh’ into the grave finder tool, and came up with a family plot a few hundred kilometers distant. It was one district away from where Mittermeyer’s family lived, actually, so Yang texted Evangeline, since Mittermeyer himself wasn’t on the planet.

> hi eva

> your family lives near here, right

He attached the location.

Eva responded almost immediately.

< Yes, about half an hour drive away :) Why do you ask?

> I have some (non-urgent) business there

> just was wondering if i could hitch a ride with you next time you visit home

< Of course :)

< We’ll probably be making that trip next time Wolf comes home on leave— I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you joining us

< Mind if I ask what the business is?

> historical research, mostly

< Very exciting :)

> not really haha

And then Yang put that thought out of his mind, or tried to.

When he slept that night, he had strange dreams. He and Reuenthal were on Phezzan, walking side by side down one of the wide suburban streets. All the cars rushed past them in the opposite direction, and Yang kept glancing at Reuenthal, nervous that he would suddenly disappear.

“You should come meet my father,” Yang said.

“I have no interest in meeting him,” Reuenthal said.

“Why not?”

“You know very well why not.”

They were approaching the house where Yang had only ever spent a few days at a time, the house that had been so full of art that it hardly had room for him, and when they walked up the front steps, Yang said, “Please, just for a minute. He’s right in here.”

Reuenthal stood, motionless, and Yang opened the door.

He woke up in a cold sweat.

* * *

It actually took another several weeks for Yang’s free time and wherewithal to coincide enough to let him visit Reuenthal’s mother’s real grave. He hadn’t stopped thinking about it in the days since Count Marbach’s funeral, and indeed the strange impulse had only grown more pressing as time went on.

He didn’t know what he expected to find when he went there. He logically knew that there wouldn’t be new information to be found. A grave was a grave, with or without a last name, with or without a body in it. The dead, blessedly or not, could not speak and tell their stories. But his thoughts kept returning to a scene that had almost left his memory, nearly a decade ago now, when he and Reuenthal and Mittermeyer had sat in a bar on Reuenthal’s birthday, and had fought bitterly over the subject of his mother.

Reuenthal had told a story that felt true to him— that his mother had cheated on his father, had given birth to a bastard, and then had tried to pull his eye out with a knife. The story had sounded implausible to Yang, the kind of thing that a bitter man would tell a son he was resentful of. But when he had told Reuenthal that, Reuenthal had cruelly threatened to expose the truth of Yang’s own family history, his secret name.

All three of them had let that moment pass, and Yang had forgiven Reuenthal immediately, but he had never really gotten any closure on it, and none of them had ever spoken of it again.

It was the summer solstice, a day he had off from duty under Duke Braunschweig, and he took the train a decent distance out of the capital, and stopped in a small town with wide, tree-lined streets and birds cawing mournfully overhead. He didn’t manage to get started on his journey until late afternoon, so it was evening by time he arrived, the sun drifting down towards the edges of the trees.

There weren’t any other pedestrians, as it was a hot summer evening, and if he was getting strange looks from the drivers of the cars that whizzed past him on the road, they were moving too fast for him to see. As he walked, he tried to imagine what Reuenthal would have to say about the buildings he passed: the elementary school, the town center where teens were hanging around outside one of the few restaurants drinking sodas, the bar with its door propped open and the dull sound of a soccer game on TV drifting out. Although Yang had spoken with Reuenthal many times while he was at home, over the summers on the phone, he never had said much in the way of how he felt about these places, so Yang was left to wonder.

He didn’t know where Reuenthal’s house was, and had no desire to go look for it, so he just continued on his way to the temple. It wasn’t a particularly long walk, but he took his time. When he arrived at the temple, he realized that, because of the holiday, there were a large number of people there for service, with the parking lot packed with cars. Yang had no intention of going in— he could be a citizen of the Empire, but being a believer in its official religion would have taken a level of self-deception that he was not able to commit to— so he just skirted around the back to the wide open cemetery.

The shadows were growing long, the sky a brilliant orange, as he walked past the gravestones one by one, looking for the cluster of von Reuenthals he knew must be around somewhere. By the time he found the family plot, fairly far back in the cemetery, the sun had slipped fully down behind the trees, and it was dark enough that Yang had to take out his phone flashlight to read the markings on the headstones. Behind him, the temple bells were sounding, pronouncing the end of the service.

There. One of those double headstones, meant for a husband and wife, with one side blank, and the other filled in with Reuenthal’s mother’s name. 

Now that he had found the grave, Yang wasn’t entirely sure what to do with himself. If he had been a more sentimental person, he might have tried to say something to Reuenthal’s mother: tell her about her son, ask her what the truth was about her family and its painful history. Instead, he just stared at the cold white stone, illuminated by the flashlight in his hand, and wished Reuenthal was on Odin, instead of stationed at Iserlohn Fortress.

“Didn’t think I’d see  _ you  _ here again,” a man’s voice called, a decent distance behind Yang. He turned, and saw a man approaching slowly, his face unclear in the darkness.

Yang realized with a start that he was being mistaken for Reuenthal. This, then, was probably Reuenthal’s father, and Yang’s stomach dropped. The one time he had met Reuenthal’s father had ended in Reuenthal getting disowned. Yang was tempted to run away. Reuenthal certainly wouldn’t want him here, but it was too late to change that, and running would make the situation worse.

“I’m not Rear Admiral Reuenthal,” Yang said as the man came closer.

His phone flashlight illuminated Reuenthal’s father enough to show that he was haggard looking, a man somewhere in his seventies, with a lined face and sunken eyes. He moved slowly.

“Who are you, then?”

“Captain Hank von Leigh,” Yang said. “I’m a friend of the rear admiral’s.”

“I remember,” Reuenthal’s father said as he got close enough to see Yang clearly. “We’ve met.”

“Yes,” Yang said.

“Did he send you here to find me?”

“No,” Yang said. “He doesn’t know I came.”

“Then what are you doing?” His words were slightly slurred, as if on the edge of drunkenness. 

“I was at Count Marbach’s funeral, and I saw his mother’s grave there. I was told she wasn’t actually buried in it, so I wanted to see where she actually was buried. That’s all.”

“I outlived that bastard— Count Marbach?”

“Yes.”

“Hah,” Reuenthal’s father said, then was silent for a second. “He was only twelve years older than me, you know.”

Yang wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I didn’t know.”

“The bride-price I paid to marry his daughter…” He shook his head.

“Is that even legal?”

“No, of course not,” Reuenthal’s father spat. “I paid off some of his debts. Quietly. In exchange for his permission.” He shook his head. “But there was nothing I could do to satisfy those people.”

“Satisfy Count Marbach?”

Reuenthal’s father made a dismissive noise, then continued as if Yang hadn’t asked a question. “Oskar learned my lesson better than I did.” He nodded at Yang. “Spent his school years falling in with the foreigners and queers because they wouldn’t be bothered that he was barely a noble, and nothing else besides. I hope it’s working for him.”

“He’s not nothing,” Yang snapped, as if that was the only thing in that statement that he could object to.

“There’s no point in defending him to me, since he’s not even here. I think I know the child I raised.”

“You won’t even call him your son?” Yang was incredulous. 

“He’s not my son.”

“I don’t know what else he could be,” Yang said. “He carries your name.”

“He should have made an effort with his grandfather, so that he could have been free of it,” Reuenthal’s father said. “He could have been Count Oskar von Marbach… But that man wouldn’t want him moving up in the world.” He laughed, bitterly. “He didn’t try, so he could save himself the disappointment.”

“He is your son,” Yang said. “Even if you wish he wasn’t, and even if he wishes he wasn’t.”

“He tell you he wanted a different father?”

“No,” Yang said. “He would never say that.”

Reuenthal’s father laughed again. “Of course not. He’s too proud.” There was a moment of silence. Yang half expected the old man to yell at him, to tell him to leave, but neither of them moved, both staring down at the dark grave and the cold white of the headstone. “Part of me thought he would come back and ask for his inheritance,” Reuenthal’s father said after a long minute of silence. His tone had changed, though the bitterness remained. “But he is too proud for that, too.”

If Mittermeyer had been here, he probably would have been yelling, Yang thought. He wouldn’t have hesitated to make it very clear exactly what he thought of how Reuenthal’s father had treated his son. Yang could have yelled, perhaps, but he looked at the man standing next to him, and saw that he was more pathetic than anything else.

“He doesn’t want it,” Yang said.

“Why didn’t he change his name?” Reuenthal’s father asked. “He should have, if he wants nothing to do with me, as you say.”

Yang thought about this for a second. There were a hundred reasons, but none of them could be easily expressed, and most of them were not things that he was willing to share with this man. Yang had perfected the ability to talk calmly to people he despised, over his years in the Empire, but that did not mean that he needed to tell Reuenthal’s father a single personal thing.

“He knows exactly who he is,” Yang said finally. And that was the truest and cleanest answer he could find. But he couldn’t quite stop there, and added, “You made sure of that. He wouldn’t ever pretend to be something different.”

Reuenthal’s father let out a bitter laugh. “The one thing I taught him, I suppose.”

“I think he learned a number of things,” Yang muttered.

Reuenthal’s father was silent for a long moment, and then he repeated himself: “I kept imagining that he’d come back. For the inheritance, or forgiveness. I would picture myself being so magnanimous about it. But you know, I think if he was here, I wouldn’t be able to stand him.” He shook his head, talking half to himself. “He doesn’t want the inheritance,” he said. “Of course he doesn’t. He was always too proud. Hah.”

Yang had had enough. “Ask  _ you  _ for forgiveness?” Yang’s voice was strained. “You should be the one asking for his. You’re lucky that he’s a better man than you are.”

“I told you not to defend him.”

“He may not care what you think and say about him any longer, but I—”

“His honor doesn’t need defending.”

“He doesn’t need me to defend his honor,” Yang said. “There’s no one here but you and me, so maybe it shouldn’t make any difference what you say— but there are limits to the lies that I can tolerate hearing, and letting people believe. You say you know him. You don’t. Not at all. Nothing— absolutely nothing— you say or think about him is true.”

“That’s his fault as much as it is mine,” Reuenthal’s father said.

“No, I don’t think it is.”

Some of the air went out of Reuenthal’s father. “He didn’t send you here?”

“No,” Yang said. “He never would.”

“He truly wants nothing to do with me?”

“Yes.”

“Not even the inheritance?”

“He’s never going to ask you for it.”

There was another long moment of silence between them. Reuenthal’s father looked down at the grave. “He looks just like his mother, you know.” When Yang said nothing in response, Reuenthal’s father continued. “She was proud, too. I wanted her to ask me for forgiveness, but she never did, and then she killed herself rather than apologize.”

“What, exactly, were you waiting for her to apologize for?” Yang hated him.

“You know what.”

It was a testament to the brilliance of Reuenthal’s pride, that he would never apologize for existing, despite how much his father wanted him to. Yang loved him for it.

“I hope you realize someday, Herr von Reuenthal, that your wife and son never apologized to you because they had nothing to apologize for.”

“You don’t know anything,” Reuenthal’s father hissed, and Yang remembered, vividly, the same tone, the same voice, spitting at him from across the booth at Joseph’s bar, a lifetime ago. It was the same unbridled malice, when a Reuenthal was confronted with this truth, the one that they didn’t want to face because facing it would hurt too much. Only this time, it wasn’t Reuenthal-Yang’s-friend— it wasn’t Oskar— it was this living ghost.

“I know Oskar,” Yang said. “And that’s enough.”

“Get the fuck out of my face,” Reuenthal’s father said.

Yang was only too glad to obey, and he walked away through the graveyard, leaving Reuenthal’s father alone in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from [ "The Dethbridge in Lethbridge" by the Rural Alberta Advantage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAlWPZ2wTNY). I saw them live once :)
> 
> yang has complicated feelings about family lol
> 
> thank you to em and lydia for the beta read!


	2. The Family and the Fishing Net

_ October 486 I.C., Iserlohn Fortress _

At first, Mittermeyer had thought that the posting he had been sent to on Iserlohn was an unexpected blessing, but as he grew used to it, he realized exactly why it had been chosen as a punishment. While Reuenthal was assigned to the relatively sedentary Iserlohn stationed fleet, Mittermeyer was constantly on patrol. His fleet was on a crushing schedule: three weeks of patrol, one week in port for repairs and resupply. This was not a usual patrol schedule. Most patrol fleets rotated on and off with less regularity, following a one month out, two weeks in schedule, and traded roles with one of the other stationed fleets every few patrols. The speed at which Mittermeyer was expected to complete his patrol route left his crews exhausted and on edge, and the little time they had to recuperate in port was taken up entirely by trying to get supplies loaded into his fleet as quickly as possible. He was often understaffed, always under-provisioned, and felt like there were no moments when he could catch his breath.

It was, indeed, a punishment, but one that he took on the chin as best he could. If the intent was to wear him down so much that encountering a rebel fleet lurking in the corridor was enough to get him killed, Mittermeyer was at least confident that he wouldn’t allow that to happen. 

He was pulling back into Iserlohn in mid October, limping as much as a fleet of ships could limp, having encountered a larger than normal rebel patrol near the mouth of the Iserlohn corridor. The scuffle had been fiercer and longer than usual, the rebel fleet not wanting to turn back into their own territory, as if afraid that Mittermeyer would pursue them. He wouldn’t have, of course. There was no value in that. Still, the rebel fleet wouldn’t retreat until they had lost an unacceptably large number of their ships. Mittermeyer’s fleet had come out better, a state which he attributed more to the foolishness of the enemy commander than his own skill. But his fleet still needed repairs, and resupply, and he knew that as soon as he came back to Iserlohn, he would be given a date for going out again in just a few days, his damaged ships and half-filled munitions notwithstanding.

With his flagship docked safely inside Iserlohn’s glittering shell, Mittermeyer released all but the most essential of his staff for a much-needed twelve hour leave. Although they would need all the time that they could get to put the fleet back in shape to ship out again, there was no way he could ask anyone to continue functioning under these conditions without giving them at least a slight reprieve. He needed one, too. 

His first order of business was to find Reuenthal, which was not a particularly difficult proposition. Reuenthal tended to only have a few haunts, chiefly a few of the nicer bars on Iserlohn itself, and his own flagship, the  _ Ostberlin _ . It was even easier than usual, this time, because Reuenthal must have heard that Mittermeyer’s fleet was coming in, and had sent Mittermeyer a message, telling him which bar he would be waiting in. Mittermeyer tried not to look like he was rushing to get there, though he felt his own usual impatience gnawing at him as issue after issue delayed him leaving the  _ Westberlin _ — people needing him to sign urgent requisition orders, some issue with routing the back half of the fleet to a different port space on Iserlohn, things that he usually handled with aplomb but which now grated on his nerves to the point where he had to restrain himself from snapping at the last adjutant who caught him just as he was heading down the  _ Westberlin _ ’s ramp into the fortress.

But eventually, he made it through Iserlohn’s many long, winding corridors to the officers’ lounge where Reuenthal had set himself up for the evening. He was seated alone at a table, near one of the windows that looked out over the bustling concourse below, where off-duty soldiers entertained themselves. The street was crowded and loud, but this lounge was quiet, with soft music piped in just enough to dampen the sound of a few captains playing pool over in the corner. Reuenthal had a tablet in front of him, and was idly working on something even as he took sips from the beer in his hand. He didn’t notice Mittermeyer come in, so Mittermeyer had the pleasure of walking up behind him, then putting his hand on his shoulder to alert him to his presence.

Reuenthal tensed, then relaxed when he saw who it was. “So, you made it back safe and sound from patrol after all.”

“Sorry I’m late,” Mittermeyer said. “I was held up.”

“You’re not late at all,” Reuenthal said. “I’m perfectly capable of occupying myself.”

“What are you working on?” Mittermeyer asked as he slid into the seat across from Reuenthal.

“Seeckt wants to do more fleet-wide training exercises.”

“Not a terrible idea, all things considered.”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “Anyway, he asked me to put together a potential plan for some war games.”

“What are you planning on doing?”

“It depends on how much Stockhausen is willing to participate,” Reuenthal said. “It would be stupid to play a wargame of fortress defense without the fortress participating, but Stockhousen hates Seeckt, so I doubt it will happen.”

“I see. You have an alternate plan, I assume?”

“Of course. We’ll take half the fleet out at a time and do some basic movement exercises. The premise of the war game will be that we detect and stop an enemy fleet before they even come anywhere near the fortress.” Reuenthal shrugged. “As good of a game as any.”

“True,” Mittermeyer said. “How have you been?”

“The same as ever. You know that nothing much happens around here. I hear you got into a scrape, though.”

“Not too bad,” Mittermeyer said. He got a drink, then went over the encounter that he had had at the mouth of the Iserlohn corridor, filling Reuenthal in on some of the more interesting tactical details. “We’ll have to take a walk after this so I can show you the state of some of my fleet.”

“Oh?” Reuenthal said, his mouth quirking in a small smile. “Did the  _ Westberlin _ get hit?”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. “But it’s going to be the devil to try to get some of this damage repaired before we head back out again at the end of the week. I’d like to get your thoughts on what I should call the highest priority, since you have an up close and personal view of what the repair work schedule looks like.”

“I’ll be happy to take a look,” Reuenthal said. They both knew that this was just an excuse to allow Reuenthal on board the  _ Westberlin _ . Although sharing a posting, almost, with Reuenthal was one of the few things that made Mittermeyer’s punishment bearable, it was quite difficult to sneak around and see Reuenthal in private, much more difficult than it would have been if both of them were on Odin. Security on Iserlohn was fairly tight, and both of their flagships, which had their rooms, were fully staffed with people at all hours of the day. If they weren’t careful, their relationship would not escape notice, and both of their falls from grace would be swift and unpleasant. The extra effort that it took to maintain the secrecy was more annoying than the lie itself, at least at this moment. Still, he couldn’t complain. Having their postings be this close together was the best he could hope for.

“Hear anything interesting from Leigh, lately?” Mittermeyer asked.

Reuenthal gave a quick glance around the room, then dropped his voice low enough that no one was likely to overhear him. “Only that Braunschweig is having him rearrange all his resources.”

“To where?”

“Did you ever go to Geiersburg Fortress?”

“No,” Mittermeyer said.

“Braunschweig’s family heavily financed it, when it was initially built,” Reuenthal said. “He seems to be preparing to make it the base of his operations.”

Mittermeyer nodded. “Interesting.”

“I suspect that Muckenburger is going to stay as neutral as possible, and is going to keep Iserlohn out of the conflict. He can do that, seeing as it will be the only point to stage a defense from if the rebels come knocking.”

“You think they will?”

“If I was— what’s his name, their secretary of defense, Trunicht— I’d be watching like a hawk for the Kaiser to die,” Reuenthal said. “Even if there was a successor lined up, if Ludwig was alive, that transition period would still be the weakest that fleet leadership’s been in thirty years.” He shrugged.

“I don’t like the sound of any of this,” Mittermeyer said.

“No?”

“No offense to Leigh, but I don’t know if I like the idea of being stuck here at Iserlohn just watching Braunschweig and Littenheim go at it.”

Reuenthal tapped his chin. “Stuck is an interesting word for it.”

Mittermeyer raised an eyebrow. “Dangerous talk.”

“Let’s hope the Kaiser doesn’t die for a while yet,” he said after a second. “We might get reassigned before then.”

Mittermeyer sighed. “No— if the idea is that Iserlohn would be neutral, there’s vested interest in keeping us assigned here. Braunschweig’s extended family still hates me, his trade with Leigh notwithstanding. And I’m sure he thinks that you’re too volatile to be let out into the rest of the galaxy. Muckenburger won’t move us.”

“It’s not as though I have any love in my heart for Littenheim,” Reuenthal said. “But I suppose the situation would be different if Leigh wasn’t working for Braunschweig.”

“Maybe it’s for the best,” Mittermeyer said, shaking his head. “If the rebels do decide to attack Iserlohn, everyone here can look like heroes without getting our hands too dirty.”

Reuenthal chuckled. “I never expected Leigh to be the one to need to dirty his hands.”

Mittermeyer frowned. “I feel bad about getting him tied up in this. He’s done me more favors than I can count— I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to repay him at this point.”

“He did always take his duty as your mentor more seriously than he should have. Maybe it’s for his own good,” Reuenthal said with a smirk. “It was a waste for him to be at the IOA.”

“I don’t think he saw it that way.”

“I’m sure he understands the benefits to his current position,” Reuenthal said. “Even if he doesn’t like to think about them.”

“I keep wondering exactly what he said to Braunschweig. What was the deal he made?” Mittermeyer shook his head and finished his beer.

Reuenthal’s smile was tight. “I think Leigh is keeping a lot close to the chest for now. I’m sure he proposed some sort of plan to Braunschweig, promised him success, but I don’t think he would risk telling that plan to anyone else.” Reuenthal hesitated. “His plans for Geiersburg might even be misdirection. That’s the kind of thing that Leigh would do.”

“Misdirection how?”

“I don’t know,” Reuenthal said. “And I suppose it all depends on how much Braunschweig is willing to listen to him anyway.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “Oh, it’s true that nobles love nothing more than to hire the most qualified advisors and then refuse to listen to them.”

“Next time you see Leigh, you can probably at least get him to complain about that. And maybe that will give us some indication on how much money we should bet on Braunschweig.”

“If only for Leigh’s sake…” Mittermeyer shook his head.

“He’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“I have more confidence in him than you do, apparently.”

“Maybe,” Mittermeyer said.

“He’s probably in more danger from Braunschweig than he is from Littenheim,” Reuenthal said. 

“Isn’t— fuck— doesn’t fucking  _ Ansbach  _ work with Braunschweig?”

Reuenthal laughed. “Yes.”

“Gods above.”

“I think at the very least Braunschweig has vested interest in his staff not murdering each other.”

“I hope so.”

Reuenthal finished his drink. “You wanted to show me how bad your fleet looks?”

“Oh,” Mittermeyer said. “Right.” And he smiled at Reuenthal.

They left the lounge together, and then made a bit of a show of walking through the landing area together, Mittermeyer pointing out some of the worst damage to his front line ships. At the end of the tour, they stood in front of the  _ Westberlin _ , at the bottom of the ramp, several of the junior officers and enlisted men milling around or performing minor repairs to the huge front sensor array on the battleship.

“If you’ve got a moment, I can give you my opinions on what you should prioritize.”

They both knew this was pretense. “Of course. Though I shouldn’t be making you do any extra work.”

“Hardly, Mittermeyer,” Reuenthal said. “Since you’re the one who’s been running back and forth through the corridor while I get to sit tight here.”

Mittermeyer chuckled, then gestured up the ramp. Reuenthal followed him into his flagship. Luckily, since Mittermeyer had allowed everyone to have leave, the corridors were mostly empty, and they passed directly by his office without going in, and made their way instead to his suite. 

Finally, in there, they could relax, at least for a moment.

Mittermeyer’s suite was relatively small— space being at a premium on battleships— but it had a separate bedroom and living room area, with a couch and a dining table and writing desk off to the side. 

“You really are the only thing that makes this posting bearable,” Mittermeyer said, turning to his cabinet to get glasses of whiskey for the both of them.

“I’m sure you’d be just fine without me,” Reuenthal said. He took the offered glass and raised it. “To your week back in port.”

“Hah,” Mittermeyer said. “Prosit.”

He watched Reuenthal drink, his eyes closed in something approaching pleasure as he tipped his glass back. Mittermeyer’s gaze lingered appreciatively on his slender fingers and jaw. 

It was difficult, when out on duty, to put thoughts of Reuenthal away. His patrols were so rapid that it felt like as soon as he had finished pushing the disappointment of leaving Reuenthal out of his mind, on the return half of the trip he slipped unintentionally into the delicious anticipation of seeing him again. 

Niggling at the back of his mind was the guilt that it was much easier to keep Eva out of his thoughts, since he had no idea when he would see her next.

Seeing Reuenthal regularly did something indescribable and potent to his mind, made him feel like a student again, with all thoughts of home distant and unpleasantly vague, and Reuenthal right there, so physical in front of him.

He sipped his own drink. Reuenthal opened his eyes as he brought his glass back down, now mostly empty, and saw Mittermeyer watching him. The smile that settled on his face was languid, and he took a half step closer to Mittermeyer.

“Do you have leave scheduled any time soon?” Mittermeyer asked.

“I haven’t requested it,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t know if any of my requests would be approved, anyway.”

“Ah,” Mittermeyer said.

“Why do you ask?”

“Was just wondering. Mostly just figuring if I’ll come back from patrol one week and find you’ve been sent back to Odin for a mandatory vacation.” This wasn’t quite true. The thought had flashed briefly across Mittermeyer’s brain about how pleasant it would be if they could take their leaves at the same time, go somewhere where they wouldn’t have to steal each other’s company an hour at a time, but then he realized that this was impossible. Even if their leaves coincided, Mittermeyer had duties on Odin concerning Eva.

“No, I doubt it,” Reuenthal said. “You’re more likely to find that I’ve been assigned patrol duty.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course.” And Reuenthal stepped closer still. Hastily, Mittermeyer finished his drink and put the glass down on the table so that he could, at last, put his hands on Reuenthal’s waist. Reuenthal chuckled at that, reached behind Mittermeyer to put his own glass down, and then leaned forward to kiss him.

He had missed this so much. It was difficult to think about anything, except for the feeling of Reuenthal’s lips on his, and the way even the air, when he hitched a breath in, suddenly tasted like his mouth. 

Reuenthal’s hand tangled in Mittermeyer’s hair, almost pulling on it, and Mittermeyer nipped at Reuenthal’s lips in exchange, causing him to make a soft, needy noise, his other hand digging into Mittermeyer’s uniform. 

Mittermeyer pulled him back towards the bedroom, and Reuenthal easily followed. They didn’t bother turning on the light, but light spilled in from the living room, plenty to see by, and Mittermeyer gave one glance at his bedside table, confirming that he had remembered to put away in the bottom drawer the photograph of Eva that usually had a place of honor there. It was as much for his sake as it was for Reuenthal’s.

* * *

Afterwards, they lay in the dim bedroom, Reuenthal’s head against Mittermeyer’s shoulder, both of them knowing that they had to get up, and neither of them wanting to.

“There’s something I should tell you,” Reuenthal said. His voice was light, in a way that never boded well, but he was too relaxed for whatever it was to be truly bad news.

“Now?” Mittermeyer asked.

Reuenthal chuckled a little. “Now that I have you in a compromised position.”

“What is it?”

“You’re not going out on patrol again at the end of the week.”

“What? That’s what the schedule I was given has me doing.”

“I’m aware,” Reuenthal said. “But I have been told—”

“Who told you?”

“You’ve met Leigh’s friend, Oberstein.”

“Yes,” Mittermeyer said, frowning.

Reuenthal must have heard the distrust in Mittermeyer’s voice. “He has access to some of the schedules. He says that you’re going on leave at the end of the week, and your fleet is trading out with Commodore Forster, at least for the next few patrols.”

“And when was anyone going to tell me this?”

“I’m telling you now,” Reuenthal said. “But command was probably going to tell you, oh, right as you had gotten all your ships ready to imminently depart.”

“In order to make a fool of me.”

“Probably,” Reuenthal said. “All part of the punishment, I’m sure.”

“And how long will my leave last?”

“Probably the most inconvenient length of time possible,” Reuenthal said. “And I’m sure you won’t be told it’s over until you need to rush back out to Iserlohn.”

Mittermeyer sighed. “Thanks for the warning.”

“You’re welcome.”

“How come Oberstein told you this?”

“If at all possible, he has even less love for the command around here than you do.”

“Great,” Mittermeyer said, relaxing back onto his pillow. “Eva will be pleased, at least.”

“I’m sure,” Reuenthal said, voice now tight. This had been why he had waited to tell the news— because as soon as this future fell into place, Mittermeyer’s thoughts slid towards Eva, and guilt, and home.

“Thank you for telling me,” Mittermeyer said. 

“You’re welcome,” Reuenthal said, though his jaw was tense.

* * *

_ October 486 I.C., Odin _

Late October in the capital on Odin vacillated between brisk and dreary on a basis that felt almost hourly. It was such a system shock to Mittermeyer, who had spent the last few months in the sterile and weatherless confines of ships, that when he stepped out into the drizzling rain outside the spaceport, with Eva on his arm, he just stood for a moment and tilted his face to the sky, letting the water trail down his nose and slip underneath the collar of his uniform.

“Darling,” Eva said, shaking her head and trying to get him to huddle under her umbrella, “you’re going to catch a cold.”

“Just hold on a second,” Mittermeyer said. The water was icy and invigorating. He shook his head like a dog, then smiled ruefully and shared Eva’s umbrella for the walk to their car.

“Of all the things you’d miss being in space,” she said, “I didn’t know it would be the rainy weather.”

“I miss plenty.” He nudged her shoulder, and she laughed. “But you go months without seeing rain— you know, it’s like the first snow of the year. Don’t you want to go out in it?”

She laughed. “Only if I can have hot chocolate afterwards.”

“Another luxury I don’t think I’ve had in space.”

“I’ll make some for you when we get home.”

“Oh— you are too good for me, Eva,” Mittermeyer said. They had reached the car, and his small amount of luggage fit neatly in the tunk. As Eva closed the trunk with a bang, Mittermeyer caught her arm. 

“You want to drive?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I want to kiss you.”

She laughed, then stood on her tiptoes, one arm still awkwardly maneuvering the umbrella to keep them as dry as possible, though it was a foregone conclusion for Mittermeyer to be soaking. Mittermeyer grabbed her waist and kissed her there in the rain, in front of all the people going into and out of the spaceport, thinking mostly about how good it felt to kiss her, and only a little about everything else.

“I’m so glad you’re back, Wolf,” she said finally, half-mumbling it into his mouth, breathless.

“Let’s go home,” he said, stroking her hair and smiling at her. 

In the car, with the radio down very low as Eva pulled out of the parking lot, she said, “I took next Friday off work,” she said. “We should probably go see your parents.”

“That’s a long drive.”

“I know,” she said. “But it’s the equinox, so we should probably make an effort.”

“Is it, really?”

“Forgotten when all the holidays are, you’ve been in space so long,” she said with a laugh.

“I’m surprised they gave me leave this soon, honestly,” Mittermeyer said. “They usually make you wait at least six months at a posting before you’re allowed to request it.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Maybe it’s a reward, for doing such a good job.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “The only reward for good work is more work, sometimes.” He hadn’t told her that he was being punished. Although in his letters and calls home he had described his posting accurately— he wasn’t going to lie to his wife, especially when it concerned how long it would be before she could expect to see another letter from him— he had done so with a cheerfulness that had thoroughly disguised how unusual his schedule was, and how miserable.

“Well, I certainly am counting it as a blessing that you’re here. Have you scheduled your trip back out yet?”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. “I don’t know exactly when I’ll be recalled. It depends on how long the repairs take, I think.”

“Your friend, Captain Leigh, asked to tag along when we go visit your parents, by the way.”

“What?” Mittermeyer asked. “Why in the world would he do that? I was under the impression that he didn’t actually like mom that much.”

“He says he needs to do some historical research close by— I think he just wants to get out of paying for a hotel.”

Mittermeyer chuckled. “Well, sure, he’s welcome to come. I’ll let him know, if he can take the Friday off as well. Do you see him often?”

“Every couple weeks or so,” she said. “Mostly when Maggie invites me somewhere. Not that often.” Her tone was odd, in a way that made Mittermeyer glance over at her.

“Everything alright with Baroness Westpfale?” he asked.

“Oh! Yes, she’s great,” Eva said. “I just— for a moment I was worried that you thought I was spending too much time with Captain Leigh.”

“You and Leigh?” The mental image flitted briefly across Mittermeyer’s brain, and it was so comical that he almost laughed aloud. “I’ve never worried about you like that, you know.”

She glanced away from the road for a second and flashed him a grateful smile. He looked away, out the window. He could reassure her, but that almost made things worse, the instant that he remembered that he was a guilty party. He would have absolutely no right to complain, if—

And he tried to put the thought out of his mind. He had no right to complain about anything that Eva did while he was gone. He had no right to complain about anything that Yang and Reuenthal did. He had no right to worry about the Baroness Westpfale aggressively flirting with his wife whenever they were in a room together. The lie sat heavily in his stomach as they pulled into the parking area of their apartment building, but he didn’t let it show on his face as he gathered up his suitcase and practically bounded up the flight of steps to their second story home.

The apartment was large, as apartments went, and charmingly decorated, with great care given to selecting the art on the walls and the rugs on the wooden floors. It was, Mittermeyer knew, not as luxe as the homes of most rear admirals in the Imperial fleet, but that was because the vast majority of rear admirals were nobles with family homes and wealth. It was home, though, at least marginally more so than his cabin on the  _ Westberlin _ . And it was good to be back.

“Take off that uniform,” Eva said. “You’re so soggy. Did you want hot chocolate?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mittermeyer replied. Eva vanished into the kitchen, and he went into the dark bedroom, pulling his uniform off over his head as he went.

All of his things were right where he had left them, but his clothes smelled unfamiliar as he pulled an old tee shirt out of his dresser drawer. All his uniforms on the  _ Westberlin _ smelled like the ship: acrid gunmetal, recycled air, the industrial detergent that everyone used. He hardly noticed it, and if he did, it was because he was with Reuenthal, smelling it underneath his cologne, his head on Reuenthal’s shoulder, his nose in Reuenthal’s hair.

But Evangeline always tucked sachets of dry pine needles in the drawers, and burned sandalwood candles, and used fabric softener that smelled like lavender, and this lingered in the soft fabric beneath his fingers.

When he walked back out into the living room, he found that Evangeline had already prepared two hot mugs, and had sat down on the couch. She held one out to him, and he took it, smiling, but didn’t sit down.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said truthfully as he looked at her. “It’s so strange being back.”

“Wolf…” she said, and stretched her hand out to him. “Come here.”

“One second.” He just wanted to look at her, the way she seemed to exist so naturally on the couch: a pleasant space without him in it. This was her world, and it felt like he would have to do something deliberate, to cross out of the world of ships and Reuenthal and punishments and secrets and into her cozy space. She wanted him there. She was inviting him in, smiling at him so gently.

He put down the hot chocolate on the coffee table, having not actually drank any of it, then walked towards her. She smiled at him still as he hesitated above her, and then he sank down to the floor, sitting at her feet. She laughed at him, and he rested his arms on her knees, looking up at her.

“What are you doing?” she asked, but touched his face with two fingers, tracing his cheekbone and then tucking some of his hair behind his ear.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Wouldn’t it be more comfortable for you to sit up here?”

He just kept smiling— an expression that he knew was on the verge of dopey— and she twirled her fingers through his hair. “Maybe being in space so long has made me ridiculous,” he said.

“What’s ridiculous about you?” she asked.

“How much I love you.”

Her expression, already tender, melted into adoring. “Maybe being alone here has made me ridiculous, too.”

“I don’t think there’s anything ridiculous about you,” he said.

“But there is.”

“What?” he asked, enjoying playing out the game.

“How much I love you!”

“You’re right,” he said. “That is ridiculous.”

She laughed. “Gods, I really have missed you.”

“I’m here,” he said. “I’m here.”

She stroked his cheek. “I’m glad.”

He leaned into the touch, and her thumb brushed over his lips, a sensation that made goosebumps rise on his bare arms. He pulled his right arm off her lap, and when he slipped his hand under her long skirt and brushed her calf with just the tips of his fingers, she shivered.

“Wolf…” she said, breath catching as he slid his hand up her leg, stopping at her thigh, just feeling the heat of it— the soft and living way she twitched under his touch. He looked up at her, met her eyes, wide and beautiful and blue.

* * *

Since Mittermeyer’s parents didn’t have any objection to Yang tagging along for their holiday visit home, they picked him up outside his apartment on that blustery Friday. Yang had bags under his eyes, and he yawned even as he smiled at the Mittermeyers. 

“You look terrible, Leigh,” Mittermeyer said, but grabbed Yang’s arm in a warm half-embrace.

“You look all right, though,” Yang said. “I see Iserlohn hasn’t been treating you too badly.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “Yeah, I’ve been surviving. Glad to be home, though.”

“I can imagine. Got your luggage?”

“Just this,” Yang said, hefting a day bag. “Thanks for letting me tag along.”

“No problem,” Mittermeyer replied. “It’s pretty shameful that you don’t own a car, though.”

Yang made a funny face and said, “I’ve forgotten everything they tried to teach me at the IOA about vehicles.”

Mittermeyer popped the trunk and let Yang put his things away, and they both got back into the car. Eva was driving, and Yang greeted her as he stretched out on the back seat. “Morning, Eva,” he said.

“Hi, Hank,” she said.

“I hope your parents don’t mind me coming,” Yang said, actually sounding a little chagrined.

“No, they like you,” Mittermeyer said.

“If you say so.”

“So, what is this historical research you have to do?” Mittermeyer asked. “Is it for your next book?”

“I don’t know if I should write another book,” Yang said. With a weird tone, he said, “Kaiser Friedrich told me to publish the one I have, but I haven’t really— I don’t know what to do with it. I mostly just wrote it for me.”

“Have you tried sending it out to be published? Got an agent or anything?”

“No,” Yang said. “I don’t know the first thing about publishing. If it had been a military history book, I could have published it through the fleet, but it’s not…” He shrugged.

“Have you read it, darling?” Eva asked.

“Oh, yeah, ages ago,” Mittermeyer said. “It was good.”

“Send me your manuscript,” Eva said. “I’ll see if any of the editors at my work want to take a look at it. I’m friends with a few of them.”

“I really couldn’t impose—”

“Don’t be stupid, Leigh,” Mittermeyer said. “Don’t let the thing sit in your drawer forever.”

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll send it to you.”

Eva smiled triumphantly.

“You didn’t actually answer the question of what your research is about, though,” Mittermeyer pointed out. He watched in the rearview mirror as Yang rubbed his hair in that familiar nervous tic.

“I just want to go see a graveyard,” he said. “It’s a little silly, honestly.”

Mittermeyer laughed. “Okay.” But he decided to free Yang from his discomfort at the topic. “How has working for Braunschweig been?”

“Different. I got used to the way things were at the IOA, so it’s strange being his staff officer.”

“I hear he’s been consolidating his forces.”

“Mittermeyer—”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t talk about it.” And Yang’s voice was both flat and uncomfortable. He looked out the window with a somewhat grim expression. “I’m sorry.”

“Would you talk about it with Reuenthal?”

“No,” Yang said. “I really— I’m sorry. It’s…”

“I get it,” Mittermeyer said.

“I might be able to, later.” It was a peace branch offering, but Mittermeyer didn’t need it.

“It’s fine, Leigh. I’m not your commanding officer.”

Yang tried to break the tension. “Yeah, you outrank me by a mile, sir.”

Mittermeyer cringed. “Please, I’m on leave. And if you start saying things like that, I’ll be forced to take up Reuenthal’s position of egging you into getting promoted.”

“I’ve got enough to worry about without becoming a flag officer.”

“It’s not so bad,” Mittermeyer said. “It got me out of engineering, at least.”

“If you say so.” There was a moment of silence.

“But you didn’t tell me how it actually has been to work for Braunschweig. He treat you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s been very professional,” Yang said. “I don’t think anybody in that camp really likes me, except maybe Elizabeth, but…” He shrugged. “Nobody’s tried to kill me, and I think I’ve made myself useful enough that they’ll keep me around.”

“Well, ingratiating yourself with the future Kaiserin is a good thing,” Eva said. “What’s she like?”

“Smart,” Yang said. “Takes after her mother more than her father. Likes to ride horses. She has a bit of a temper, but she’s usually pretty reasonable about what she gets mad at.”

“And why do you think she might like you?”

“I try not to treat her like her father’s puppet,” Yang said, with an air of finality. He changed the subject. “How has Reuenthal been?”

“Oh, fine,” Mittermeyer replied. “Mostly bored, I think. He’d rather be out on patrol than stuck at Iserlohn arranging drills for his fleet.”

“Makes sense. How is patrol?”

Mittermeyer glanced at Eva, who was following the conversation but not interjecting, and realized that he wasn’t going to be able to describe things to Yang without Eva learning about his punishment. “Fine, I suppose,” Mittermeyer said.

“What route were you running?”

“We had a three weeks out, one week in schedule,” Mittermeyer said.

“Oh, so only out to like—” Yang consulted his mental map of the corridor— “Van Fleet?”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. “We were going all the way to rebel territory.”

“In three weeks? They really are punishing you.”

“Punishing?” Eva asked.

“It was fine,” Mittermeyer said. “Don’t worry about it, Eva.”

“Hank doesn’t seem to think it was fine,” Eva said. “That isn’t normal? Hank— what is normal?”

“Oh, er…” He had inadvertently stepped into a minefield. “When I was with Admiral Merkatz we had five weeks to go that far,” Yang said. “But most patrols don’t go out to the end of the route. They’re usually on a four-two schedule.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Eva asked.

“I did tell you my schedule!” Mittermeyer protested.

“And you told me it was fine.”

“It is fine. My men are very good. We were making great time.”

“But it’s a punishment.” Eva’s voice was flat. “You should have told me—”

“A punishment is getting put in jail,” Mittermeyer said. “This is just what happens when your superiors don’t like you.”

Eva frowned. “I would like to know if you’re being mistreated, or if I need to worry about your superiors having it out for you.”

“You don’t need to worry about it,” Mittermeyer said.

“I want to.”

“You want to worry?” He crossed his arms.

“Yes, I do,” Eva said.

“There’s nothing that you could do about it, so I just don’t want to make you—”

“If I was being mistreated at work, wouldn’t you want to know? Even if there was nothing you could do about it  _ but  _ worry?” she asked, cutting to the core of the problem with her hands tight on the wheel. “I love you, Wolf, and I don’t want to be lied to to spare my feelings.”

“It really was fine, Eva,” Mittermeyer said quietly. “The point is to take it on the chin and not complain.”

Eva shook her head, then let out a rush of breath. “I don’t understand you, sometimes.” She reached over and punched the radio, flooding the car with music and ending the conversation.

* * *

It was true that Mittermeyer’s parents were fine with having Yang around. Yang wasn’t a perfect houseguest by any means, but his mother liked that Eva liked him, and so it was acceptable to bring him around. Reuenthal would have been a different story, Mittermeyer thought, but the one time that Reuenthal had come to visit was not something that he was ever looking to repeat. 

Dinner was a pleasant and cheerful affair, but Yang kept yawning, and the dark circles under his eyes made him look almost pitiful, so Mittermeyer’s mother had tucked him up in the guest bedroom immediately after dinner. Evangeline had gotten a phone call from a friend in town and so had gone off to visit with her for a little while, and his father had a pressing work issue that needed to be dealt with, so this had left Mittermeyer alone with his mother, sitting at the kitchen table with no avenue for escape.

She had brewed them a pot of coffee, and the steaming mug sat between Mittermeyer’s hands as his mother bustled through the room with a bit of a relentless nervousness, picking up objects and moving them, even though they had been quite fine where they were.

“I swear, your friend fell asleep as soon as he sat down in the guest bed,” she said. “Didn’t even take his clothes off.”

“That’s Leigh for you,” Mittermeyer said.

“Remind me again why he wanted to visit?”

“He writes history books as a hobby— he needs to get photographs of a graveyard a little ways from here, apparently.”

“Hunh,” she said. “When will he go do that?”

“I’ll take him tomorrow morning, if that’s no trouble.”

“No, of course not.” She wiped down one of the counters, although it was already perfectly clean. “How have you been, Wolf? Honestly.”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Work is difficult, but not anything I can’t handle.”

“You lonely out there in space?”

He laughed, though it probably wasn’t the right tone. “Mom, I’m so busy I don’t have time to think about myself. Trust me.”

She made a noise of assent. “I imagine it’s difficult to be away from home for so long at a time.”

“It’s the way things are in the fleet. I would say that Eva could move to Iserlohn, but she would say no to that.”

“Have you asked her?”

“We had this argument with Barbarasturm already, mom. We don’t need to go through it again.”

“You don’t think she would have a different answer, after what happened then?”

Mittermeyer frowned, but his mother wasn’t looking at him, instead lifting up the burners on the stove and fiercely scrubbing underneath them. “I felt guilty for even asking before. She has a career that she likes, and a life in the capital. I’m not going to take that away from her just so I can see her one week of the month when I’m not out on patrol. Life on Iserlohn isn’t…” He shook his head.

“Do the other officers bring their wives?”

“Some of them.” He paused, then added, “More of them bring their mistresses.”

“Wolf.”

“What?” he asked, splaying out his hands. “It’s true.”

His mother sighed. “Is Eva alright with you being away so much of the time?”

“She knew what she was getting when she married a career officer,” Mittermeyer said. “And Iserlohn is far better of a posting than Barbarasturm, or Kapche-Lanka was. It won’t be forever.”

“Nothing is,” his mother said. “She wouldn’t say it, so I will: I hope you retire from the fleet.”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. This was just rehashing an old argument.

“You’re not going to go much farther in it than you already have, and I think that now is the time in your life to focus on what’s important— your family.”

“Eva supports my career.”

“But I’m right that you won’t get much farther.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m a rear admiral and I’m not even thirty— that kind of fast promotion shows real promise.”

“But you’re not a noble, and you made trouble. I don’t think…” His mother was right, but Mittermeyer was never going to admit it.

“The next time the rebels try to come through Iserlohn, you’ll see,” he said. “I think that I’ll be able to clear my good name.”

“Wolf,” she said, then shook her head. “That’s the kind of talk that gets people killed.”

“I’m careful, mom,” he said.

“If you get out of the fleet now, it would be very easy for you to get a career elsewhere— you could do well in engineering.”

“Mom, no.”

She put the stove burner covers back down with clangs, one by one. “Every day I worry that I’m going to get a call telling me you’ve been killed, you know.”

Mittermeyer stood up, walked over to his mother, and put his hand gently on her shoulder. “I’ll be fine, mom,” he said. “I promise.”

She wiped her hands on the dishtowel and then smiled at him. “I pray that’s true. Even a post on Odin would be better…”

“Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of thing you get to pick,” Mittermeyer said with a laugh.

“Eva would appreciate it if you tried.”

“I’m sure,” Mittermeyer said. “Probably after the kaiser dies, everybody’s posting will get reshuffled. I can hope I get a lucky posting from that.”

His mother nodded. “Before you went to Barbarasturm, Eva called me and told me she thought she might be pregnant— were you trying?”

“Well,” Mittermeyer said, flushing. “We weren’t  _ not _ trying.”

His mother smiled. “I would like a grandbaby, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Eva wants a baby— I don’t know if it would be fair to her to leave her alone for so long…”

“Now you see my side of things.” His mother’s voice was a tad too triumphant for Mittermeyer’s liking.

“If Eva really does get pregnant, then I’ll think about retiring,” Mittermeyer said. Though he thought it might be better to get Eva to move to Iserlohn, in that case.

“Good,” his mother said. “Good.”

“I’m not making any promises.”

“If I might ask— what made Eva think she was pregnant before?”

“She missed her period, and took a pregnancy test that came back positive,” Mittermeyer said. “But it must have been defective, because…” He shrugged. “Nothing ever came of it, anyway.”

“I see,” his mother said. “I hope we hear some good news soon.”

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer said. “We’ll see.”

* * *

By the time that Mittermeyer was able to beg the excuse of taking Yang to see the graveyard, he was very ready to escape his family. Yang could tell he was growing antsy, and helped by asking loudly when would be a good time for the both of them to go visit. It was mid afternoon by the time they were able to leave.

The graveyard that Yang wanted to see was about a half hour drive away, closer to the center of the district, in a richer area than Mittermeyer lived. He hadn’t been here very often, so he relied on the car’s navigation for directions. They finally pulled in to the parking lot of the graveyard, and Mittermeyer parked the car, then turned to Yang. “Want me to come with you?”

“The alternative is sitting in the car,” Yang pointed out. “Up to you.”

Mittermeyer nodded and hopped out. It was an unseasonably warm day, and sunny, but all the trees in the graveyard were bare regardless, so it was a strange sight. The headstones stretched up a hill, and then disappeared out of sight on the other side. 

“What names are you looking for?” Mittermeyer asked as they walked. “We could split up and cover more ground.”

“It’s alright,” Yang said, and didn’t answer the question. He kept glancing down the rows, mainly heading towards the fenced in areas where individual families kept their plots. “Thanks for bringing me here.”

“Not a problem at all,” Mittermeyer said. “I recall that last time you visited my family, I had to beg you to be a buffer.”

Yang chuckled. “Did I ever tell you— I overheard your parents talking about that at your wedding.”

“What, really?”

“Yeah,” Yang said. He kicked up some leaves as they walked. “They were worried that I was going to cause problems for you.”

“They can’t leave well enough alone, can they?”

“I think they’re alright,” Yang said. “They care about you a lot.”

“I know.” Mittermeyer looked away. “What did they think you were going to do?”

“Oh, I think they thought that you and I had something going on.”

Mittermeyer looked at Yang, who smiled a little. “Seriously?”

“Just chalk it up to them being paranoid,” Yang said. “I don’t think you were actually doing anything that looked suspicious.”

“I don’t know what gives them those ideas…”

Yang just rubbed his head. “I don’t know.”

“Did you know— Eva told me she was worried that I thought you had something with her.”

Yang stopped, alarmed. “I would never—”

“I’m aware, Yang.” It was the luxury of being totally alone in this graveyard that allowed Mittermeyer to address him by his real name. Yang smiled.

They continued on through the graveyard in silence, with just the wind rustling through the bare branches overhead, and their feet crunching on the few dry leaves on the stone path through the graves.

Yang leaned over the fence on one of the family plots and said, “Oh, here it is.” Ungainly, he clambered up over the fence so he could hop down into the enclosed area, where grass grew far taller than the surrounding zone. Mittermeyer followed him over, then bent down to look at the nearest stone. It read Hermann von Leigh, and then dates.

“This is what you came here for?” Mittermeyer asked, laughing.

Yang had a strange expression on his face as he stepped between the stones, reading their names studiously. 

“Here’s the grandfather I was named for,” Yang said, pointing to one of the newer stones. Mittermeyer walked over to take a look at it. 

“What?” Mittermeyer asked. He read the name aloud. “Heinrich von Leigh.”

“Hank is a derivative of Heinrich,” Yang said. His tone, while joking, belied some kind of strange feeling.

“Did you pick your name to have real relatives?” Mittermeyer asked.

“No,” Yang said. “A friend of mine— Boris Konev— he made it up as a joke. It just sounds almost like ‘Yang Wen-li’ when you say it fast.” He shook his head. “That was a million years ago, now.”

“What did you want to come here for?” Mittermeyer asked. “Just curiosity?”

Yang sank down to his knees, and brushed some of the leaves and detritus away from the bottom of Heinrich’s stone. “I guess. I don’t know.” He fiddled around with something in his pocket. Mittermeyer was silent and waited for him to say something more, which he did. “I wanted to see my dad’s grave, on Phezzan,” Yang said. “But I can’t go back to Phezzan, and it’s just a stone, anyway— he’s not even buried there. So, I don’t know…” He trailed off. “This is as good a place as any. I’ve stolen their names, I guess I can come and talk to their graves.”

“What did you want to talk to them about?”

Yang pulled out the thing in his pocket that he had been fiddling with. It was a small wooden box, and he tossed it to Mittermeyer, who caught it deftly and then opened it, revealing a beautiful little engagement ring. The central red stone glittered in the waning autumn sunlight.

“Should I propose to Maggie?” Yang asked.

Mittermeyer hesitated. “I can’t believe you’re asking my advice.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t ask yours.”

“I think the situation is a little different,” Yang pointed out. He wasn’t looking at Mittermeyer, and was instead just running his finger over the letters carved in the marble headstone, tracing the ‘von Leigh’ over and over.

“Do you want to marry her?”

“I think it would solve some problems.”

“That doesn’t really answer the question,” Mittermeyer said. He could understand Yang’s cageyness. “Forget about Reuenthal for a second— if everything with me and Eva had never happened, would you be marrying her?”

“I probably would have already,” Yang said. “I mean…” His fingers skipped along the gravestone. “Maggie’s great.”

“You love her?”

“Well, yeah,” Yang said. “It’s not the same— you get that, right?”

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer said. “I do.”

“She’s the closest friend I have on Odin, and I’ve done things for her that— well.”

“I don’t think doing things for people is enough to get you to marry them,” Mittermeyer pointed out. “You’ve done too much for me.”

“Maybe,” Yang said. “But, I don’t know, it’s different with her.” He seemed at a loss for words. “It’s like any room she’s in is brighter. More exciting. Maybe that’s a bad thing, and she’ll give me a heart attack someday.” He laughed. “But she likes me around, and I like to be around her.”

Mittermeyer waited to see if Yang would say anything more. When he didn’t, Mittermeyer asked, “And what about Reuenthal?”

“I don’t think anything will fundamentally change. I mean, Maggie doesn’t care. Making things official will change more how other people see us than how I see Maggie.” He shrugged. “I told Count Mariendorf— we look better together than we do apart— even though both of us are, you know.” He trailed off.

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer said. “I guess you should, then.”

“Okay,” Yang said. He fell silent.

“What would your dad have said?”

Yang shook his head. “I have no idea.” The melancholy in his voice was almost painful for Mittermeyer to listen to. He crouched down next to Yang, and handed him back the box with the engagement ring. Yang turned it over in his hands. “I have no idea what he’d think of me now.”

“You don’t think he’d be proud of you?”

Yang rubbed the back of his head. “I don’t even think he’d recognize me.”

“I bet he’d be proud of you,” Mittermeyer tried to say.

Yang shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter.” But his voice indicated that it clearly did. He shook his head. “I think— in his way, he wanted me to be happy. He’d probably tell me to marry her for the money, though.”

Mittermeyer laughed aloud, and Yang glanced at him, then smiled.

“Yeah, I guess that is pretty funny. It’s probably what he’d say, though. He really… He knew the value of the dinar.”

“Gods, Yang,” Mittermeyer said. “You’d better listen to your old man, then.”

Yang rubbed his head. “Yeah, maybe.” He stood, then slipped the ring back into his pocket. “Thanks for taking me out here,” he said.

“No problem,” Mittermeyer said. “Any time.”

He was seized by the need to throw his arm around Yang, like he had when they were students, and he did, catching Yang unaware enough that he stumbled under the half-blow, but he relaxed when Mittermeyer patted his shoulder. They contemplated the von Leigh family plot for a minute more.

“Think you’d be buried here?” Mittermeyer asked. It was a joke, if a morbid one.

“No,” Yang said. “I think an empty grave in the fleet cemetery is the best I can hope for, at this point in my career.”

“Don’t get killed under Braunschweig,” Mittermeyer said. “I can tell you that wouldn’t be worth it.”

“I’ll try,” Yang said. “Besides, they wouldn’t want a stranger in here buried with them.”

“I guess.” He thought for a second about offering to pay for a grave on Phezzan, with Yang’s real name on it, if the worst came to worst, but he decided against it. There was no point in being that morbid. He simply resolved to do so, because it seemed like the kind of thing that Yang would want. Mittermeyer could do that much.

They were silent for a second more, then Yang turned. “I’ve been spending too much time in graveyards, recently.”

“That’s your own fault for doing so much historical research.”

“I suppose it is,” Yang said. He clambered back over the fence, and Mittermeyer followed. They walked slowly towards the cemetery entrance.

“It’s a pretty ring, by the way,” Mittermeyer said. “How much did you spend on it?”

“Nothing,” Yang said. “Count Mariendorf gave it to me.”

“Hunh,” Mittermeyer said. “That’s nice of him.”

“Yeah.” Yang shook his head. “It really was.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from ["The Family and the Fishing Net" by Peter Gabriel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bg_dwfRnL8)
> 
> i forget what I was going to say in my author's notes? i feel like i had a mbillion things to say, but I've forgotten them all. perhaps this just means the work must stand on its own for once lol.
> 
> thank you to em and lydia for the beta read!


	3. Oskar von Reuenthal Was Born Innocent

_ November 486 I.C., Iserlohn Fortress _

The news came in late November, catching Reuenthal completely off guard. He opened up his messages one evening and found a letter from a non-government address, with a name that he didn’t recognize. The subject line read, “Condolences; the estate of Peter von Reuenthal.” That being his father’s name, Reuenthal’s breath froze in his throat, and he opened the message, which turned out to be from his father’s lawyer.

It was almost what he had expected. His father had died. This was unsurprising; it seemed only natural that he would drink himself to death one day. 

The thing that made him clench his hands into white knuckled fists was the second part of the message, which said that Reuenthal had inherited everything that there was to inherit.

He didn’t want it. Not the money that was listed there in the message, not the investments that his father had made, not the house, not the land it sat on. He didn’t want any of it, and he had thought— by virtue of his father striking him from the family record almost a decade ago— that he would be free of it. He hadn’t given much thought to what would become of the property if his father failed to assign an heir (though the mental image of it crumbling into dust sometimes flashed through his head, when he remembered it,) and he had taken as much pride as he could in making his way in the world without any hope of an inheritance to fall back on.

He was tempted to ignore the message completely, to pretend as though it did not exist, and to let the property sink into ruin, but that was a petty and stupid urge, which he rejected out of hand. As with every other thing his parents had given to him, it was his burden to bear, and he would bear it. So, as soon as he finished reading it, he composed a letter to fleet leadership, requesting enough leave to deal with his father’s estate. 

When that was done, he went over to his small liquor cabinet in his rooms on the  _ Ostberlin _ , retrieved a bottle and a glass, and sat down on his couch to drink, staring off into space. He couldn’t help but think of his father, remembering most clearly— for whatever reason— the many times they had visited his mother’s grave. Dewy grass beneath their feet, staring down at the blank white slab.

He was well into his fourth drink when his phone showed him a text alert from Mittermeyer.

> are you coming to the bar?

< No.

> busy?

< My father died.

It took less than ten minutes after that for Mittermeyer to make his way onto the  _ Ostberlin _ and directly to Reuenthal’s quarters. Reuenthal’s staff were familiar with Mittermeyer’s comings and goings, so there would have been no one who would have stopped him en route. He knocked on the door to Reuenthal’s chambers, once, then twice when Reuenthal didn’t immediately get up to answer the door.

Reuenthal finally stood, a weariness in his limbs that he didn’t recognize and seemed to come from nowhere, and let Mittermeyer in. 

Mittermeyer didn’t seem to know what to say, so Reuenthal spoke as he walked away from the door, back to the couch, and poured Mittermeyer a drink as well.

“I put in a leave request to deal with his estate,” he said. “I’ll probably be gone all December, and be back around New Year’s. I have no reason to think my request will be denied.” The words felt heavy and dull in his mouth, in a way that he couldn’t quite chalk up to the drink in his hand.

“I’m sorry, Oskar,” Mittermeyer said finally.

“Don’t be.” Reuenthal sat back down, not looking at Mittermeyer.

The substance of what Reuenthal said finally hit Mittermeyer, and he said, “You have to deal with his estate? I thought you had been disowned.”

“He changed his mind a few months ago, according to his lawyer. You can read the message if you like.”

“No, no,” Mittermeyer said. “Did you know he did that?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “If he had told me, I would have told him to find someone else to give it to.”

Reuenthal suddenly remembered something, and he stood up and walked over to his desk, rifling through the drawers to find his checkbook. He pulled it out, then neatly filled out the top check for several thousand marks. He ripped it off and held it out to Mittermeyer. “You can be the first beneficiary of it. Here’s what I owe you for your car.”

Mittermeyer took the check, but frowned. “I told you that the insurance covered the value of it.”

Reuenthal pursed his lips, but Mittermeyer didn’t argue, merely tucking the check into his pocket. He sat back down on the couch, took his drink back in hand, and kicked his legs up on the coffee table in front of him— hoping that a pretense of nonchalance would grant him some in reality. It didn’t, and he could tell that Mittermeyer didn’t think he was relaxed, from the way that he didn’t sit down.

“Are you going to hold a funeral?” Mittermeyer asked.

“He was a man who was known to few people, and hated by those few, so I don’t know who you think would come,” Reuenthal said. “He wasn’t even particularly religious. I’ll bury him. That’s all.”

“Yang would come,” Mittermeyer pointed out. “And if you wait until I have leave later this month, I would.”

“I don’t want anyone to come,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t need assistance, or sympathy, or pity, or anything else. I need a month of leave, to put the estate in order. That’s all.”

“I know,” Mittermeyer said. Reuenthal finished his drink, and Mittermeyer walked over and poured him another, taking the glass from Reuenthal’s hand. He still didn’t sit down.

“Will you sit?” Reuenthal asked, suddenly annoyed.

“I’m afraid that I’m going to say something that will piss you off enough that you kick me out,” Mittermeyer said dryly. “I was just trying not to get too comfortable.”

Reuenthal scowled. “I should for that.” He pulled his feet off the coffee table and crossed his arms.

Mittermeyer sat next to him on the couch. “You should tell Yang you’re coming back.”

“I don’t need Leigh to babysit me.” Whatever emotion Reuenthal was feeling, it came out in that snap of his voice, the callousness directed at Yang, who wasn’t even there and wouldn’t have deserved it even if he was.

Mittermeyer raised his eyebrows at the change in address. “He’s Leigh when you’re angry, is he?”

“He’s Leigh because that’s his name,” Reuenthal said. “I’m not angry.”

“No,” Mittermeyer said. He took a sip of his drink.

“I don’t know what you think telling him would do.”

“He’d want to see you, for one thing,” Mittermeyer said. “I think he has a lot to talk to you about that he wouldn’t tell me when I saw him.”

The political matter of Braunschweig felt distant and immaterial. “Fine,” Reuenthal said. 

He finished his drink and poured himself another. Mittermeyer just watched, saying nothing. Mittermeyer wasn’t wrong that Reuenthal, with his churning, unidentifiable emotions, wouldn’t hesitate to kick him out at the slightest provocation, and they would both be the worse for it in the morning. Even drunk, Reuenthal could recognize his own worst impulses; he just couldn’t stop himself from acting upon them in the heat of the moment. Mittermeyer sitting there silently was prudent, even if Reuenthal wanted an excuse to yell, wanted to quarrel with Mittermeyer just to have something concrete in his hands.

“You remember that time we were on Kapche-Lanka?” Reuenthal asked, after a long, long period of silence.

“Of course.”

Reuenthal just nodded. He couldn’t explain any further, and had to hope that Mittermeyer understood. Thinking about his father always made him feel like his skin was too tight, like he needed something to shatter it off of himself to finally be free. But he knew that he couldn’t goad Mittermeyer into punching him, not tonight, anyway. He didn’t even know if that was what he truly wanted— he knew he shouldn’t want it— but there was this sensation of pressure behind his eyes, an impulse that said the only way to free himself was to crash into something with great force, full body: a train, his face into a wall, a fist. It didn’t matter what. His body hungered for the pressure, a release valve for whatever thought he couldn’t put a name to.

He drank, instead.

* * *

_ December 486 I.C., Odin _

Reuenthal didn’t keep an apartment on Odin, now that he was assigned to Iserlohn most of the time. His few possessions were kept in a storage locker in the capital. This included his winter clothing, since he had no need for it in the weatherless space fortress. 

This meant that when the taxi dropped him off in front of his father’s house in the dark December night, he was struck immediately by blasts of icy wind that his uniform did nothing to protect him against. The house was pitch black, and the moon was partially obscured by fat clouds that scuttled through the sky, sending shifting shadows across the crisp snow on the ground, hardened into a thick layer of ice. Reuenthal stomped across it, feet leaving craters and sending snow into his own shoes.

The front door was locked, but Reuenthal walked around the side door that let into the kitchen, and felt around with numb fingers underneath the window ledge, finding the spare key that he himself had taped there, probably seventeen years ago. Protected as it was from the worst of the elements, the tape hadn’t given up its strength in the decade that Reuenthal had been gone. He unwrapped it enough that he could stick it in the door, shivering and fumbling blindly until he felt the key slide in place and the lock twist open. The door stuck; he slammed it with his shoulder until it popped open, sending him and the snow spilling inside the kitchen, even darker than the outside world had been. But at least it wasn’t as cold; someone had remembered to leave the heat on enough that the pipes wouldn’t freeze, and he heard the sink dripping.

But when he closed the outside door and leaned against it for a moment before searching for the lightswitch, it was the smell that assured him that he was home. He had been wondering if he would be left with the lingering scent of decay— his father had been dead nearly a week before the cleaning lady found him, according to the coroner’s report— but there was nothing but the smell of the house. It was dry rot, he thought, the pine wood of the house crumbling; paper and dusty fabric; a distant tobacco undertone from his father’s rare cigar; old spices; the metallic scent of water coming up through the pipes. It was exactly as he remembered it, though he wouldn’t have said he remembered it before he was reminded.

Strange, how this kind of thing could be so powerful, could persist in this place and in the depths of his memory, as though there was nothing more pressing to crowd it out. 

He took off his shoes at the door and decided against turning on the light. The house was familiar to him, and he fell into his old patterns of moving through it. It was just like he was creeping home again after going out to visit the Mariendorfs. He was opening the fridge to see if there was any food. He stole a beer, the only thing on the bottom shelf of the fridge. It wasn’t as though his father would miss it now.

He held it in hand as he went upstairs, feeling his way up with his hand on the wall, keeping to the edge of the stairs where they creaked less. He was a ghost in his own home.

His childhood room was at the end of the hall, door shut. The knob was still broken, but it was so easy to jimmy it, wiggle it sideways just a little so that he could get in.

Nothing had been touched. His room was exactly as he had left it when he had packed up after the winter break of his senior year at the IOA. There was a layer of dust over everything, and when he flipped on the overhead light only one of the bulbs worked, but other than that, it was unchanged. He stepped inside, crossing the threshold, and closed the door behind him.

There were his old swim medals pinned up on the wall above his bed. There was the IOA class photo of all the top students arranged in a neat pack— the one photograph he had allowed himself to hang of Yang, since it was less personal. They stood next to each other in the photo, one and two, and Reuenthal could just make out his own serious expression contrasted with Yang’s genuine, if uncomfortable, smile. He hardly looked any different from the other students in a photograph this distant and grainy.

Reuenthal sat down on the bed, which creaked underneath him and sent a puff of dust up from the neatly made bedspread. The room seemed smaller than he remembered it, though that couldn’t have been true considering how much time he had spent in the tiny cramped cabins for junior officers in ships. He thought it was probably even larger than his senior dorm room at the IOA had been, though perhaps he was misremembering that, as well. 

A careful numbness settled over him, a practiced emotion, where he could think about things without letting his thoughts run wild. Tomorrow, he would need to start cleaning. He should get rid of his father’s things, sort the important paperwork that had been neglected in drawers, make sure that there weren’t any parts of the house that were falling down. He needed to arrange his father’s burial. The body was currently being held in the morgue.

He cracked open the beer and sipped it. It was the kind that his father liked, some cheap local variety. He would have never picked it for himself, but it was just another thing that felt natural in this house.

His thoughts slid away. What would he do with his father’s things? His clothing? No charity shop would want them, certainly. He needed to find an outfit to bury his father in.

Unbidden, he had an image of tossing his father’s clothes in the fireplace downstairs. Shirts, jackets, shoes, socks, underwear, the whole thing up in flames, spilling out onto the floor, rippling towards him, and then up the walls, the whole house a pillar of fire. He lingered on this image, imagining himself immaterial and untouchable as he wandered through the house. Everywhere his mental gaze turned, new flames leapt up, licking the curtains and the paintings on the walls, racing up the stairwell, consuming the books in the library, bursting the wine bottles in the cellar, moving like a tidal wave across the wood floors and roaring over the master bedroom, until the ceiling itself crumbled and the house collapsed. 

He was staring into space, thinking about this, when his phone rang. The buzzing in his pocket made him jump, now on edge, and he let it ring for a good twenty seconds before he could get his hand to grab it and answer.

“Reuenthal!” It was Yang on the other end. “Mittermeyer told me you were back in the capital.”

“Did he?” Reuenthal asked, mouth dry suddenly. 

“Yeah, he said you left Iserlohn a couple days ago and were supposed to be here— I guess you are— where are you?” Yang’s voice was pleased, which could only mean that he had no idea why Reuenthal was on the planet— if he had known, Reuenthal didn’t know if he would have called.

“I’m home,” Reuenthal said. “I’m at my house.”

There was dead silence over the line for a second.

“You’re with your father?” Yang’s tone was completely different now, guarded and worried, obvious even through the tinny speakers.

“He died,” Reuenthal said.

“Oh.” Yang let out a rush of breath. “I’m… sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll talk to you later, Wen-li.”

“Wait— Oskar—”

“What is it?”

“Are you planning on staying there?”

“It’s my house.”

“Come to my place.”

“No.”

“I’d like to see you,” Yang said. 

Reuenthal took a long moment to weigh Yang’s tone. If he was offering out of pity, Reuenthal had no interest in seeing him. But if it was a genuine want on Yang’s part… 

“Come here, then,” Reuenthal finally said.

“Okay,” Yang said. “I will.”

“Fine,” Reuenthal said, and hung up the phone abruptly, leaving him in the dead silence of his room, interrupted only by the wind creaking around the sides of the house.

He didn’t know if Yang would actually come; he wasn’t sure how Yang would even get there, considering that he couldn’t drive. It had been stupid of him to refuse to go to Yang’s place, but he thought that would have been admitting— admitting what? Defeat? To whom?

He shook his head and stood. If Yang was coming, he could spend the time before he arrived doing what he had said he would, picking out an outfit for his father to be buried in.

His father’s bedroom was just down the hall, past the unused guest bedrooms. Even as a child, Reuenthal had rarely ventured into it, so, strangely, it felt less oppressive than the rest of the house when he walked inside. The bed was unmade, and there were dirty clothes falling halfway out of the laundry basket, but aside from that and the empty beer cans stacked on the bedside table, the room was not terribly messy. Reuenthal pulled open the closet. 

His father’s suits took up most of the space, but as he rifled through them, he realized that the closet went deeper into the wall than was immediately visible, and that recessed part was jammed full. Reuenthal pushed his father’s clothes out of the way and reached back into the depths, grabbing blindly at the silky fabric that floated past his fingertips. He pulled.

One of his mother’s dresses emerged from the closet like a ghost in his grip, the pale pink fabric loose and soft, hardly worn. Reuenthal held it up to the light, examining the lace collar and trying to remember if he remembered his mother wearing it. He didn’t, or at least he didn’t think he did.

He could imagine what she looked like, though. As he went to toss the dress down onto the bed, he caught a glimpse of himself holding it in the mirror across the room. He had always been told the resemblance was uncanny. He dropped it, disgusted, and turned away.

He couldn’t fathom why his father had kept all of this. Or, perhaps he could. It was the same reason his mother was buried in the von Reuenthal plot, the same reason his father hadn’t sent him away to live with his grandfather: because he wouldn’t put down the burden of his wife’s misdeeds.

They were alike, in that, at least.

But Reuenthal didn’t need to keep his mother’s dresses as a reminder of anything. He had better ones.

As he waited for Yang to arrive, he selected the plainest black suit for his father, and then pulled all the rest of the clothes out of the closet, piling them into a heap on the bed. He wanted to burn them, but he admitted that this was perhaps better suited to an outdoor bonfire than it was to the fireplace downstairs.

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

< i’m here

< i don’t think your doorbell works

Reuenthal made his way downstairs. Yang was standing in the front doorway, huddled underneath his winter coat, hands stuffed deep into his pockets and a plastic bag hanging off his arm. He smiled at Reuenthal when he pulled the door open, and he came into the house riding on a gust of icy air, some loose snow tracked in with him.

Reuenthal helped him with his jacket.

“I brought dinner,” Yang said, holding up the bag. “Have you eaten?”

“No,” Reuenthal said, and actually couldn’t remember when the last time he had eaten was. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Yang said. “It’s good to see you.”

Reuenthal got a better look at him, now that they were in the hallway light, walking down towards the kitchen. He looked tired, but otherwise much the same as he had when Reuenthal had seen him last, more than half a year prior. Reuenthal hadn’t realized it had been that long until just now, seeing Yang again. Time on Iserlohn was immaterial, without the changing of days and seasons. Everything was measured in hours, and it was easy, if one wasn’t paying attention, to accidentally go twenty five, thirty hours without sleeping, lulled into forgetting how long it had last been by more pressing needs.

There was a tension between them, with Yang half opening his mouth to say something as Reuenthal set plates on the kitchen table. He kept starting, then stopping himself, shaking his head with a little twitch as a personal rebuke to not say something. Reuenthal wondered what it was he had to say, but wasn’t going to ask. Perhaps it was just the fact that they hadn’t seen each other in so long, the reunion was sometimes difficult, neither sure if something had changed in the interim.

The dinner Yang had brought was meat pies, wrapped in foil and still steaming hot. They sat across from each other to eat, drinking the beer from the fridge.

“Mittermeyer told me you had something to tell me,” Reuenthal said after a while. “Or something you wouldn’t tell him, anyway.”

Yang’s eyes slid away from his. “I have to figure out what I can tell you,” Yang said. “About Braunschweig, I mean. Things are very up in the air right now.”

Reuenthal nodded. Yang sounded even more evasive than his words let on, but Reuenthal had never been good at prying strategy out of him when he didn’t want to talk, so he didn’t try. “You haven’t had any trouble with Ansbach, have you?”

Yang let out a rueful laugh. “No,” he said. “We mostly stay out of each other’s way. It suits me just fine.”

“Glad it hasn’t been a problem.”

“He’s mellowed out since we were students, I think.”

“If you say so.”

“Have you been alright on Iserlohn?” Yang asked.

“It’s been boring,” Reuenthal said. “They punish Mittermeyer by giving him too much to do, and they punish me by having me sit on my thumbs.” He swiped his hair off his face. “It’s not much of a punishment. I suppose life at Iserlohn is always a waiting game until the rebels try something.”

Yang just nodded. “How have things been with Mittermeyer?”

“Good,” Reuenthal said. “Do you need me to elaborate more than that?”

Yang’s mouth curled in a strange half-smile. “No,” he said. “Not in particular.”

“And life on Odin?”

“I keep myself busy,” Yang said. “I had gotten used to the way things were at the IOA, so it was a bit of an adjustment at first to leave it, but…” He shrugged. “Did I tell you I spoke to the Kaiser a few months ago?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “What did you say to him?”

“Not much.” Yang frowned. “Picking Braunschweig cost me his favor.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Reuenthal said. “But I suppose it won’t matter for much longer.”

“True. It might even be better that I picked a side early. If I hadn’t…”

Reuenthal nodded. Lacking any protection after the Kasier died would be a dangerous position for Yang. The only person he might have been able to rely on would be Fleet Admiral Muckenburger, and even then, Reuenthal wasn’t sure that he would have been willing to do much for Yang.

They were silent for a moment, then Yang asked, somewhat tentatively, “Did your father talk to you before he died?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. He stabbed his pie with his fork. “He changed his mind about the inheritance and didn’t even tell me.”

“Oh,” Yang said. It looked like he couldn’t decide to say he was glad or sorry about that state of affairs, so he just kept quiet.

“He was always obsessed with money,” Reuenthal said. “He probably decided that the last thing he wanted to do was have everything he owned go to the crown when he died. Even I’m a better alternative than that.” He shook his head and sipped his beer. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t need it, but I have it.”

Yang nodded. “I suppose it’s good that you can have a permanent place on Odin.”

“Yes, like the rest of the noble admirals.” Reuenthal finished his beer. “A family home.”

“It will make some things easier,” Yang pointed out. “My landladies won’t have as much reason to get suspicious, and no more dealing with hotels…” Or Mittermeyer’s wife, Reuenthal mentally added.

“That’s true.”

Yang tugged at the back of his hair. “Are you going to hold a funeral?”

“Mittermeyer asked me that same question.”

Yang was silent and waited for the answer.

“I don’t see what the point of it would be,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll bury him, since there’s already a plot and a stone, but there’s no point in doing anything more than that.”

Yang hesitated. “If you want me to be there, I’ll come. And Count Mariendorf, I know, would come, too.”

Reuenthal stifled his scowl. “Why?”

“Funerals have never been for the dead,” Yang said. “They’re for the living. Count Mariendorf would probably want the closure.” His voice was frank. “If you don’t invite him, I’m sure he won’t hold it against you, but I think he would prefer to be there.”

“And you?”

“I’m not going to presume to say what you want,” Yang said. “But if you want the company, I’m happy to give it.”

Reuenthal stared out the dark kitchen window for a second, the moonlight shifting through the bare tree branches, preternatural shadows dancing on the snow. “All it will be is putting a coffin in a hole in the ground,” he said. “But if Count Mariendorf wants to see it, I won’t stop him.” Yang was right that he owed the count that much, at least. 

Yang relaxed, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.

“I hope you’re not worried about me,” Reuenthal said.

“Worry is different than care,” Yang said.

“How sentimental of you.” Reuenthal kept his voice light, and Yang smiled at him.

“Maybe.” He finished his pie and put his plate in the sink, then walked around behind Reuenthal. He put his hands on Reuenthal’s shoulders, a gentle, deliberate touch, and Reuenthal leaned back to look up at him.

“Are you going to show me around the house?” Yang asked.

“I haven’t even looked through all the rooms myself.”

“Maybe not the full tour, then.”

Reuenthal got up. “Whatever you like,” he said.

Yang smiled. 

Reuenthal led him around the first floor of the house, dining room, living room, drawing room, though he didn’t open the doors to the library or his mother’s study, and Yang didn’t ask. Upstairs, he paused at the master bedroom, and Yang looked curiously at the pile of clothes on the bed.

“I needed to find an outfit to bury my father in,” Reuenthal explained. “But I should get rid of all of that.”

Yang just nodded.

They came to Reuenthal’s bedroom, and he had to jimmy the door handle open again. Reuenthal stepped inside, but he turned back around and looked at Yang. “Wait,” he said.

“Alright.” Yang stood in the doorway, the dusty yellow light swirling around him. Reuenthal sat down on the narrow bed and looked at him. Yang looked back.

“I used to dream about this,” he said.

“Your father dying?”

“No,” Reuenthal said. He certainly had dreamed about that, but that wasn’t what he was referring to. “Whenever I’d come home from school— I’d think about you showing up here one day.”

“And what did I do?”

“Stand in the doorway,” Reuenthal said. 

“Nothing else?” Yang asked.

“It was always something different— but it always started with you right there.” His hands twitched on the dusty bedspread. “Sometimes my father would come home. It was usually a nightmare.”

“I’m sorry,” Yang said. Reuenthal shouldn’t have told him that— the look on Yang’s face was one of genuine discomfort. 

“Don’t be,” Reuenthal said. “I liked them anyway.”

He looked at Yang for a long moment more, the dream frozen. But then Yang stepped forward into the room, crossing the threshold, and the dream fell away, and it was just them once again, Yang coming towards him as he sat on his childhood bed. 

Reuenthal grabbed his sleeve and pulled Yang towards himself, leaning back so that Yang could hover over him, just for a second before climbing onto the bed, cupping Reuenthal’s face with his now dusty fingers, and kissing him, clumsy but sincere.

Reuenthal smiled into his mouth, then laid back, pulling Yang down with him, Yang supporting himself with his elbows on either side of Reuenthal’s chest.

“You really should have come to my place,” Yang grumbled. “My bed is larger than a twin.”

* * *

Yang couldn’t leave well enough alone, when it came to Reuenthal. It wasn’t that Reuenthal disliked Yang’s company— in fact, it was Yang’s company that made most of his time on Odin bearable— but it was never not strange to see Yang in the rooms of his father’s house. He invited himself over on a regular basis, and seemed comfortable perched on the counter in the kitchen as Reuenthal cooked dinner, or laying stretched out on the couch in front of the fire, or perusing the books in the library. Yang made the house feel like a different place.

But he wasn’t there all the time. The hours after Yang left were always the darkest, and Reuenthal would often take out something from the liquor cabinet and drink until he fell asleep.

It was not a pleasant place. Yang seemed to understand this, even though Reuenthal said nothing about it. He occasionally seemed to be on eggshells around Reuenthal, or pretending very strongly that everything was normal, as if by pretending he could make it more pleasant.

“You know,” Yang began one evening as they were walking around the grounds, Reuenthal making note of which trees were so rotted through that he would have to have them removed, “in order to enjoy living here, you should do things that you enjoy.”

Reuenthal glanced at him sideways, then stuck his finger into the side of an old, leaning oak tree, feeling the wood come away at his touch. The tree had been struck by lightning at some point, and while half of it was dead and rotted, the top still had whole branches.

“I have you over.”

“Well, sure,” Yang said, scratching the back of his head. “But that’s not everything.”

“I spend most of my time in space anyway. It hardly matters.”

Yang frowned. “At least have other people come here. It might make it feel less gloomy.”

“You’re suggesting I throw myself a housewarming party for a house that I have lived in for most of my life.”

“Just a dinner. It doesn’t have to be big. Invite Mittermeyer over, now that he’s on leave.”

“He won’t come to dinner without his wife.”

“Okay, then invite Evangeline too.”

“She won’t come anywhere near me unless Baroness Westpfale is also in attendance.”

“And invite Maggie, too. See, a perfectly pleasant guest list.”

“I thought you hated parties.”

“It’s not a party,” Yang said. “It’s a group of friends who all want to see the place you’re living in.”

Reuenthal frowned and made a noise that wasn’t agreement, but somehow, later, he found himself sending a message to Mittermeyer, inviting him to dinner. As predicted, Mittermeyer asked to bring his wife, and she asked to bring the Baroness Westpfale. Reluctantly, Reuenthal agreed.

It was on a Friday night that the dinner was to be held. Magdalena drove Yang, the pair of them arriving before the Mittermeyers. Reuenthal suspected that Magdalena had been responsible for dressing Yang, as well, since his outfit was nicer than his usual attire. He allowed himself to spend a moment appreciating the sight of him as he greeted them in the doorway.

“It’s not a terrible house,” Magdalena commented as they walked in. “Though the interior design could use a woman’s touch.”

“I think not,” Reuenthal said.

“What do you think, Hank?” Magdalena asked.

“Hunh? Oh, I don’t know. I never really had a sense of that sort of thing. My father didn’t… He loved art but just… put it places, rather than decorating.”

“See,” Magdalena said. “Now, Wolfgang and Eva— their place is very cute.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Reuenthal said.

“You say that,” Magdalena said. “But I don’t believe it for a second. You think the Mittermeyers have a nice home, right?” She turned to Yang.

“Er, yeah.”

They came to the drawing room, and immediately Magdalena went over to the walls. “Now, this isn’t terrible, space wise. It’s just dark. But even if you don’t want to strip the wood paneling, which I think is the biggest culprit, getting rid of the curtains, and switching these paintings to something less dreary would help.” She was examining a dour looking portrait of Reuenthal’s paternal grandmother, and a painting of sailing ships at night which had been the one picture in the house that Reuenthal had liked as a child.

“I have plenty of spare paintings just lying around to hang up on the wall,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll switch them out right away, Baroness.”

Magdalena scoffed. “I’ll get you something nice,” she said.

“I would hope that you don’t think I need charity.”

“No, but you do need someone with good taste, and of all the people you know, I suspect that I have the most of it.”

“Oh?”

“Well, it’s either me or Eva, and I know that you do not want to spend the rest of your mortal life staring at paintings that Eva has made just for you out of the kindness of her heart.”

“If there is one thing that I am certain that Frau Mittermeyer and I agree on, it is that neither of us would prefer that she gives me her charity.”

Magdalena laughed. “Oh, Oskar, you’re unkind to her.”

“Am I?” His voice was bone dry. Magdalena was testing his patience.

“You know, Eva is perfectly willing to be your friend. She thinks you’re a bit of a sad man.”

“Then why does she require you as an escort?”

Magdalena laughed. “Because if I’m not here, you and Hank and Wolfgang dominate the conversation with things that she does not care about. And you ignore her.”

“And if you are here, you dominate the conversation with things that do not matter,” Reuenthal said, which made Madalena laugh.

“You invited me to see your house and I am here to see it. It hardly seems that I am in the wrong for commenting on it. You’ll have to give me the full tour, after dinner.”

“Of course,” Reuenthal said.

It was at this point that the doorbell rang. “Oh, that must be Mittermeyer,” Yang said, pointing out the obvious in a clear attempt to break the tension between Reuenthal and Magdalena. Personally, Reuenthal didn’t feel like there was that much tension— Magdalena seemed perfectly willing to give better than she got— but Yang had been tugging at his hair watching their back and forth.

“And Eva,” Magdalena said with a smile. She flounced back out of the drawing room towards the front door, as though it was her house, with the right to greet guests.

Mittermeyer and Evangeline were at the door, and Reuenthal glared at Magdalena to get out of the way so that he could let them in. Mittermeyer was dressed in civilian clothes, and Evangeline was holding a bouquet of admittedly charming blue flowers. 

“Glad you could make it,” Reuenthal said, clapping Mittermeyer on the shoulder, who grinned at him.

“Thank you very much for the invitation, Herr Reuenthal,” Evangeline said. “These are for you. Magdalena mentioned that you might like something to lighten up the dining room.”

“I wonder how she knew that, considering this is the first time she’s been here,” Reuenthal said, then raised an eyebrow at Yang, who looked away, slightly guiltily. “Regardless, thank you.” Mittermeyer relaxed a little when Reuenthal made it clear that he was not going to be rude. “Please, come in. Dinner is keeping warm in the oven, whenever you’d like to eat.”

He led the group into the dining room, then left to see if he could find a vase to put the flowers in. He didn’t think his father had ever once kept flowers in the house, so this was a more difficult proposition than originally expected. Eventually, he gave up and just found a gold and black beer mug that was tall enough to hold them. He frowned at it, then left it in the kitchen instead of bringing it back out to the dining room.

Everyone in the other room was laughing at some story that Mittermeyer was telling, which Reuenthal only caught the last few words of. Yang had been right that the presence of other people would brighten up the house, but, leaning in the doorway of the dining room, looking over at them, Reuenthal felt about as distant from them as he could possibly feel.

Mittermeyer saw him lingering in the doorway and asked, “Do you need help bringing the dinner out?”

“If you don’t mind,” Reuenthal said, and Mittermeyer followed him into the kitchen. He spotted the flowers in the cup that Reuenthal had abandoned on the counter and chuckled.

“Eva will appreciate the effort,” he said.

“You put them on the table, then,” Reuenthal said. He was removing the dinner from the oven— a side of lamb— and taking out the knife to carve it, when Mittermeyer came behind him and put his hands on Reuenthal’s hips, nestling his chin on Reuenthal’s shoulder.

“What’s put you in a mood?”

“Who says I’m in a mood?” Reuenthal asked. But still, he put down the carving knife and turned to face Mittermeyer, stroking a stray piece of his hair behind his ear as Mittermeyer pushed him back against the counter, hooking his fingers through Reuenthal’s belt loops. 

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to see you again before my leave is over,” Mittermeyer said. “I’m heading back out on Thursday.”

“We should go out drinking Wednesday night, then,” Reuenthal said.

“I’ll pencil it in.” Mittermeyer’s hands moved up Reuenthal’s back, and Reunthal shifted, leaning forward to kiss him, hungrily. As Mittermeyer reciprocated, they slid a little sideways along the countertop, and Reuenthal’s hand knocked the carving knife, perched precipitously on the edge, down to the floor, where it clattered and bounced. Reuenthal jumped, bashing his lip between Mittermeyer’s teeth and his own, startling himself and pushing Mittermeyer away.

“You are in a mood,” Mittermeyer said, touching his teeth where Reuenthal had knocked him. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Reuenthal said shortly, heart beating hard. “Fine.” He bent down to pick up the knife, checked to make sure it hadn’t gotten nicked on its impact with the tile floor, and washed it off in the sink. His lip felt swollen already, and he hoped that nobody would notice. At least it wasn’t bleeding.

Mittermeyer helped gather the dinner dishes, including the “vase” of flowers, and brought them back out to the dining room.

“Everything alright in there?” Evangeline asked.

“Oh, Reuenthal just almost dropped the lamb while carving it,” Reuenthal heard Mittermeyer say. He gathered the rest of the food and brought it out.

“This looks delicious, Herr Reuenthal,” Evangeline said.

“Thank you,” he replied, voice tight. He could appreciate that Evangeline was making an effort, but he rather wished that she wasn’t. Life would be easier if they could simply ignore each other.

He poured everyone some wine.

“To your new-old home,” Mittermeyer said, raising his glass.

“To good luck on your next deployment,” Reuenthal said.

There was a general murmur of assent and ‘Prosit’ from the gathered group, and then they dug in to their food.

“Say, Reuenthal, I thought it was my turn to pick the wine,” Mittermeyer said.

“You can pick the dessert wine,” Reuenthal said. “I’ll let you see the cellar.”

“It’s pretty big,” Yang said.

“You spent a lot of time in there?” Magdalena asked.

“A reasonable amount,” Yang said. “I’m not actually that picky when it comes to alcohol, so I’ve just tagged along.”

Evangeline shook her head. “Should you be concerned about his habits, Maggie?”

“Oh, Hank can do what he likes,” Magdalena said. “Maybe someday when he makes up his mind to put a ring on my finger, I’ll be able to use it more like a leash.” She grinned, a little devilishly. Reuenthal glared at her. “What?” Her voice was innocent, but she continued to bare her teeth.

“The same might be said of you,” Reuenthal said.

“Oh, I don’t think that Hank has either the ability or the desire to dictate what I do.”

“Then you would make a poor wife,” Reuenthal said flatly. “And I would not wish you on him.”

There was a moment of awkward silence around the table, then Magdalena laughed, very loudly. “Oh, gods, Oskar, you are hilarious. I hope you come to our wedding and stand up and loudly object when they ask if anyone has a problem with us.”

Mittermeyer and Yang glanced at each other. “I think you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Yang said, very clearly uncomfortable, trying to redirect the conversation. He looked at Reuenthal, a strange expression on his face that Reuenthal couldn’t interpret.

Magdalena leaned heavily on Yang’s shoulder, then ran her hand through his hair. “It’s a foregone conclusion, darling.”

Evangeline smiled a little. “I think that would be a sweet wedding. I always love to see the two of you together.” 

Reuenthal tried and failed to hide his scowl in his wine. Yang cringed, but Magdalena said, “Why, thank you, darling,” with a broad smile at Evangeline.

“I still think he’s too good for you,” Reuenthal said.

“Psh,” Magdalena said. “I don’t think so. Eva, don’t you think if I was a man, I could have been an admiral like your husband?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Would you want to be?” She seemed to be actually considering it.

“Hmm, maybe.” Magdalena twirled a piece of her hair. “All I’m saying is that if I had been a man, you wouldn’t be saying anything about him being too good for me.”

Evangeline, who was missing the vast majority of the context of this conversation, said, “But you wouldn’t be trying to marry him, so he wouldn’t really have reason to.”

“I don’t believe that’s true,” Reuenthal said, very, very mildly. “There are few men who are Leigh’s equals.”

“You all can stop fighting over me,” Yang said, sounding slightly grumpy, looking to Mittermeyer for help.

“Oh, alright,” Magdalena said. But she wasn’t done being a pain, apparently, because she turned to Reuenthal. “Have you been seeing anyone? Now that you have this house, the natural thing is to get a wife to live in it with you.”

“Natural it may be,” Reuenthal said. “But I have no interest in it.”

“Why not?” Magdalena asked. “I’m sure Eva could tell you that being married is very nice.”

“Being married to Mittermeyer may be nice,” Reuenthal said. “Being married to me might be distinctly less pleasant.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty of women who—” Evangeline began.

“I spend too much time in space,” Reuenthal said flatly. “And furthermore, I value my own privacy too much to allow some stranger in it.”

Evangeline sighed a little, “Well, so long as you’re happy, Herr Reuenthal.” She smiled.

“I am,” Reuenthal said curtly.

Perhaps Magdalena had gotten whatever grievances she had out of her system, because she turned to Evangeline and started asking her about how her work was going, a topic that did not involve or interest Reuenthal in the least, so he stared into space and mechanically ate for a while. He didn’t really notice Mittermeyer and Yang both alternately glancing over at him when he hadn’t said anything in a long time.

After they had finished the main meal, Reuenthal stood. “You said you wanted to pick the dessert wine, Mittermeyer?”

“Oh, yes,” Mittermeyer said. “Let me see the selection.”

“What is for dessert?” Magdalena called after them as they walked away. 

Reuenthal didn’t respond, but he heard Yang say, “I think it’s a cake?”

He led Mittermeyer down the hallway and then the steps to the wine cellar, shutting the heavy door behind them. As soon as they were alone in the cool and dim basement, Mittermeyer pushed Reuenthal up against the stone wall. They kissed without speaking, Mittermeyer running his tongue gently over Reuenthal’s slightly swollen lip. Reuenthal slipped his hands up underneath Mittermeyer’s shirt, awkwardly maneuvering around the stiff fabric to touch Mittermeyer’s chest: the soft hair, skin that was hot to the touch, and the old, faded scars. When his fingers ran over Mittermeyer’s nipple, Mittermeyer made a soft sound in Reuenthal’s mouth, then pushed Reuenthal’s hands away. 

“I don’t think we have time for this,” he said.

“They can wait.” Reuenthal switched tactics and moved to kiss Mittermeyer’s jaw, then neck. Mittermeyer relaxed enough that Reuenthal could free his hands, running them down Mittermeyer’s sides until he was at his belt and trying to undo it blindly. Mittermeyer’s original protest had been a weak one, and he didn’t say anything when Reuenthal knelt, the cold stone floor digging into his knees. He pressed his forehead to Mittermeyer’s stomach for a second, and Mittermeyer’s hand stroked his hair, careful not to mess it up too badly, which Reuenthal appreciated. 

He had just gotten his pants down and was about to start on his underwear when he heard the heavy door at the top of the stairs open, and Magdalena’s loud and annoying voice say, “Can you hurry up? Eva wants to have dessert so that we can get the house tour you promised.”

“One minute,” Mittermeyer called back, attempting not to sound too flustered and failing. Mittermeyer reluctantly nudged Reuenthal away and pulled his pants back up. “I told you we didn’t have time,” he said, sounding mostly chagrined. Reuenthal didn’t stand up for a second, and Mittermeyer touched his cheek, solid thumb rubbing from the corner of his mouth towards his ear. “Come on,” Mittermeyer said. “We’ll have time later.” Reuenthal still didn’t move, savoring the touch, until Mittermeyer offered him a hand to pull him to his feet.

Mittermeyer spent about thirty seconds picking a wine from the racks while Reuenthal brushed any dust off his knees and tried to get himself under control. Leaning on the wall, watching Mittermeyer, Reuenthal thought he seemed totally incongruous with the setting. His blond hair caught the muted, dusty light cast by the bare bulbs above, and the odd shadows that fell across his face confused his features. 

Mittermeyer was not a creature who belonged in this place. Although the cellar no longer held the same horrors that it did when he was a child, it still retained an unpleasant place in Reuenthal’s memory.

(When he had been seven, his father had locked him down here for hours, and he had been too short to reach the string that turned on the light; when he had been thirteen and home alone, he chose a random bottle and drank himself to the point of illness, though at least that had meant he had cared far less when his father punished him for the theft.)

Before seeing him here, Reuenthal could have never imagined Mittermeyer in this place. Even now, he seemed likely to vanish— and he would, before the week was out. There was a grim sense of satisfaction in imagining what his father would have done, if he had ever caught Reuenthal here in such a position. 

Reuenthal was orbiting a realization, or a feeling, that Mittermeyer didn’t belong here, but that he himself did. 

So, it was that thought, rather than just the interruption, that turned his mood even further towards the melancholy. Mittermeyer held up a bottle, smiling. His face was pleasantly flushed, and Reuenthal tried to return a pleasant expression of his own.

“Shall we go back?” Reuenthal asked.

“Unless you want Baroness Westpfale to come down here and drag us out, yes,” Mittermeyer said. He touched Reuenthal once more, a lingering press at the small of his back, a reassurance about the ‘later’, and then they headed back up the stairs.

“Took you long enough,” Magdalena said. 

“It’s a big place,” Yang said in their defense.

“Mm, I’m sure,”Magdalena said wickedly. Reuenthal narrowed his eyes at her. “If you had been any longer, Eva would have sent down a search party.”

“Leigh wasn’t keeping you both entertained?”

“He can barely handle one woman,” Magdalena said. “Two is far too much.”

Mittermeyer coughed, a half-chuckle, then smiled at Evangeline. “Well, I hope the wine was worth the time we took to choose it.”

“I’m sure it’s fine, darling,” Eva said. “You have good taste.”

“Why, thank you,” Mittermeyer said as he sat back down.

Reuenthal retrieved the dessert from the kitchen— Yang had been right, it was a chocolate cake— and sliced and served it for everyone.

“Dinner has really been wonderful, Herr Reuenthal,” Evangeline said as they ate the cake. “Thank you very much for the invitation and the lovely evening.”

“It has been my pleasure,” Reuenthal said, attempting to be gracious. He looked at the space between Evangeline and Mittermeyer, and saw that she had placed her left hand on his lap. He looked away.

Yang had been correct, in one way, that having guests over would liven up the house. But Reuenthal’s mood was getting harder to control by the second, and that made him further frustrated with himself. 

“Do you have any plans to make renovations?” Evangeline asked. “One of my coworkers’ husband, he does major reconstruction to old buildings. She’s always talking about it.”

“I don’t know,” Reuenthal said. “Like I said before, I don’t know if I even spend enough time on the planet to make putting heavy work into it worthwhile. If I can do enough to keep it from falling down around me while I sleep, I’ll count that as enough of a victory.”

“Is it in very bad repair?”

“I don’t think my father did any maintenance on it in the past twenty five years, and before I inherited it, I hadn’t been here in almost ten. I’ve been finding a lot of things that need urgent attention. The roof is one.”

Evangeline nodded. “If you need me to recommend you a roofer, I’m sure I can find one for you.”

“Thank you for the offer,” he said. “I’ll let you know.” He would not let her know.

“You haven’t been here in ten years?” Evangeline asked. “Why not?”

“My father and I were not on good terms,” Reuenthal said. “He had me struck from his family record on the grounds that I was not his legitimate son.” He couldn’t have said why he was telling them this.

“But you inherited the property?”

“He changed his mind,” Reuenthal said, voice very short. Yang looked down at his plate.

“What made him do that?” Evangeline asked, curious now, clearly despite herself.

“I have no idea.” Reuenthal sipped his wine. “He knew I didn’t need it. Perhaps he wanted me to no longer be able to claim being my own man.”

“It’s good you inherited, anyway,” Magdalena said.

“Is it?” Reuenthal’s mouth was dry. He drank his wine. He wanted to be much drunker than he was. “Now I have a house that I have never particularly liked, and money that I have no particular use for.”

“Oskar, you should know that there’s always plenty of uses for good money,” Magdalena said.

“Perhaps.”

“It’s a good house,” Evangeline said. “I’m sure that you’ll be able to make it your own, in time.” 

Reuenthal nodded and fell silent. 

“You could sell it, if you really don’t like it,” Yang said, finally.

“No,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t think so.”

Yang tilted his head, then, and raised his glass. “Then may the house you live in never fall down.”

“Indeed,” Reunenthal said. “And when you stop renting, I’ll say the same for you.”

“That will be when he moves into my estate,” Magdalena said, deciding to be obnoxious once more. Yang sighed audibly.

They finished their desserts, and then Magdalena stood, grabbing Reuenthal’s arm unpleasantly. “Now, give us that long-awaited tour.”

He shook her touch off. “If you insist.”

Evangeline yawned a little. “Please. I’d like to see it before it gets too late.”

Reuenthal shrugged and began walking them through the rooms of the house. “You’ve already seen the entrance hall, and the dining room. I’m sure you glimpsed the kitchen. It’s nice enough…” He pointed down the stairs leading out of the kitchen to the basement. “There’s the cellar. Do you need to see it?”

“Is it exciting?” Magdalena asked.

“No,” Reuenthal said. “It’s an unfinished basement with some wine bottles in it.”

Magdalena laughed. “Fair. Lead on.”

“Here’s the drawing room… You already saw it.” He let them examine the furniture a while before heading back out into the hallway. He showed them the living room as well. “And upstairs—“

“There’s more down this hallway, isn’t there?” Magdalena asked.

Reuenthal had one foot on the large staircase to go up, but paused. “Alright,” he said, a twist in his voice. If Magdalena wanted the tour, he would give her the tour.

The door at the end of the hallway was kept locked, but the key was on the doorframe above his head. He retrieved it and unlocked the door. “This is my mother’s study,” he said. The room hadn’t been touched in years, and a thick layer of dust lay over everything. “She killed herself at that table,” he said, pointing to the desk. He wandered over to the wall, where one of the paintings was precipitously tilted. “When the police came, they suspected that my father might have murdered her, because they had been fighting. But she overdosed.” He shrugged. “Anyway, I don’t use this room.”

The assembled group was almost completely silent.

“I’m sorry,” Evangeline said.

“It’s fine. I hardly remember it.”

He brushed past them all to leave the room, and Yang shut the door behind everyone. The other closed door on the other side of the hallway was not locked. “Here’s the library,” Reuenthal said. “My father died in here. I had to have the carpet taken out.”

“Oh,” Evangeline said.

“There’s a good selection of books,” Yang pointed out.

“I don’t know if my father ever read a single one,” Reuenthal said. “He just liked to sit in here and drink. Well, I don’t know if liked is the word for it, but it’s what he did.”

Mittermeyer touched his arm on the way out the door of the library, giving him a questioning look. Reuenthal pursed his lips and just walked forwards. 

“Upstairs is mostly just the bedrooms,” he said.

“The staircase is a nice centerpiece of the house,” Evangeline said as they walked up it. “I like the lines.”

“Yeah,” Mittermeyer agreed, though it was clear that he had no idea what she was talking about. “Seems well constructed, anyway.”

“Thank you for your professional opinion,” Reuenthal said, which did succeed at making Mittermeyer chuckle, at least.

“Years of hating engineering, I’m just happy it gives me the right to make unfounded comments about other people’s homes.”

Reuenthal led them down the upstairs hallway. “Here’s the master bedroom. I don’t use it.” He held the door open, revealing a neatly made and clean room, practically sterile. 

There was little to appreciate there, and equally little to show about the several unused guest bedrooms. One room had been repurposed into a small office for Reuenthal. 

“And here’s my bedroom,” Reuenthal said, holding open the door. The former guest bedroom was still nearly undecorated.

“I didn’t really believe Hank years ago when he said that you hang that sword directly over your bed,” Magdalena said. “I can’t believe that not only was it apparently true, you’re still doing it.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s going to stab you to death,” she said. “At least move it so it won’t kill you if there’s an earthquake, or something.”

“This part of Odin is not well known for its tectonic activity,” Reuenthal said, voice dry. “I like it there.”

Magdalena shook her head, then took Eva’s hand. “Darling, promise me you won’t let  _ your _ husband sleep with an axe or something hanging up above him.”

“I’m sure that Herr Reuenthal has secured it,” Evangeline said, trying to be polite. “If it hasn’t fallen down yet, it probably won’t.”

“That’s what they all say,” Magdalena said, then shook her head. “Well, on your own head so be it.” She went back into the hallway, then went to the last door. “And this one?” She pulled it open, forcing the handle.

“My childhood room,” Reuenthal said, leaning against the hallway wall. He let everyone peek into it. They were able to admire a few remnants of his childhood— the desk and chair that had always been too small for him, the narrow little bed, the bookshelf with old school books and a few assorted knicknacks. “My mother tried to kill me in there, once, when I was a baby,” he said. He didn’t know why he said that: maybe he was more inebriated than he thought. 

Everyone had a bit of a different reaction. Magdalena looked him in the eye, raising an eyebrow. Yang sighed a little. Evangeline flinched, and Mittermeyer put his hand on her arm in a reassuring gesture.

“Is there anything else?” Magdalena asked.

“There’s the attic,” Reuenthal said. “But it’s not worth looking at, since the roof is in poor shape. The estate the house is on is somewhat nicer than the house itself. Unfortunately, it’s a little too dark to give that tour.”

“That’s fine,” Evangeline said. “I’m sure we can see it some other time. It’s getting quite late.”

“Oh, are you going to head out?”

“That might be for the best,” Evangeline said. “I have a dentist appointment early tomorrow morning.”

“Did you want any leftovers to take home with you? There’s plenty of cake.” He walked them to the door.

“No, thank you, Herr Reuenthal. Dinner was excellent, though.”

“I’m glad that you enjoyed it.” He took her hand and kissed it, though he met Mittermeyer’s eyes. “You shall have to come again sometime.”

“Of course,” Evangeline said. “Wolf?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll see you Wednesday, then, Reuenthal?”

“Wednesday,” Reuenthal agreed. He squeezed Mittermeyer’s upper arm for a second, then held open the front door to let them out. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your night.”

“And you, as well,” Evangeline said. She smiled at him, then took Mittermeyer’s arm, and the two headed off down the driveway towards their car. Mittermeyer glanced back at Reuenthal once before he shut the door.

Reuenthal turned around, expecting to tell Magdalena that she should probably go home as well, but she had vanished. “Where did she go?”

“The drawing room, I think,” Yang said.

Reuenthal sighed heavily. “She should go home.”

“I don’t know if she will,” Yang said.

Reuenthal went into the drawing room. Magdalena had somehow helped herself to the liquor cabinet’s contents already and was pouring three glasses of whiskey, which she handed to Yang and Reuenthal.

“Whose house are we in again?” Reuenthal asked.

“It seems the house belongs to the ghosts of your dead parents,” Magdalena said. “You scared poor Eva, you know.”

“So?”

Magdalena shook her head as she flopped onto the plush armchair. Yang and Reuenthal sat on the couch, and Yang immediately contorted himself to end up with his feet in a weird position underneath him. When Reuenthal wrapped his arm around him to pull him closer, Yang leaned into his side, though Reuenthal was slightly worried that the glass he was holding was going to tip over onto his pants. Yang was not exactly being careful with it.

“She’s going to pity you even more, now.”

“I don’t think so,” Reuenthal said. “But, even if she does, why should I care?”

“I do not think I will ever understand you,” Magdalena said, taking a sip of her drink.

“I don’t know why you should.”

“Because we’re friends.”

“We most certainly are not.”

“If you say so, Oskar.”

“Baroness.”

She smiled slyly at him and drank. “Too bad you didn’t inherit from your grandfather.”

“I had no desire to be a count. Or to inherit a house and lands that I haven’t set foot on since I was an infant.”

“It would be better for you than this house that you have spent far too much time in.”

“Oh?”

“But why wouldn’t you want to be a count? It’s nothing to scoff at.”

“It isn’t?” Reuenthal asked. “As far as I can see, most nobles did nothing to earn their titles, and do nothing with the titles that they have. I can earn my own way in the world.” He finished his glass. “My father certainly learned that lesson.”

Magdalena leaned far forward, reached across the room for Reuenthal’s empty glass, which she then refilled from the bottle next to her, and then handed back to him.

“When did he strike you from the family record?” Magdalena asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“The day we graduated from the IOA,” Yang muttered. “My fault, I think.”

“Now that’s a story I haven’t heard,” Magdalena said.

“It’s not worth telling. If you want it, pry it out of the young Hildegarde von Mariendorf.”

Magdalena’s expression was wide-eyed. “Hildegarde von Mariendorf! I will have to.”

“It’s not that exciting,” Yang muttered. He finished his drink in what looked like one gulp, then leaned further on Reuenthal until his head settled, catlike, in Reuenthal’s lap. “I still do feel bad, though.” Yang’s eyes were closed, and Reuenthal stroked his hair. Magdalena watched, sipping her own drink, and Reuenthal silently dared her to say anything.

“I highly doubt it’s your fault, Hank. Someone’s father ejecting them from the family on the very first day that they could conceivably make their own way in the world seems like a fairly premeditated move,” Magdalena said.

“How kind of him to wait until then,” Reuenthal said, unable to keep the bitter tone out of his voice.

“No, it probably wasn’t,” she said. “What would have happened if he had kicked you out?”

“It depends,” Reuenthal said.

“On?”

“How old I was.” He said this like it was obvious.

“Okay, if you were a child, middle school.”

“My grandfather would have taken me, probably. Or Count Mariendorf.”

“High school?”

“The same.”

“While you were at the IOA?”

“I would have been able to be independent.”

“So it wasn’t really kind of him, then.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted their pity.”

Magdalena snorted. “There’s no pictures of you as a child in this house, but I’m sure I can imagine what you looked like. You’re twelve, thirteen, your father has just kicked you out. You spend a night or two on the streets before the cops pick you up, and they drag you to your next of kin’s place. You might not like your grandfather—“

“I don’t know him at all. We’ve never spoken.”

“He wasn’t a bad man. I knew a few of his granddaughters.”

“Fine.”

“But they drag you to his house, and you’re so stiff and angry, but for the first time in your life, you’re living in a house where no one’s going to hit you.”

“I never said my father hit me.”

Magdalena rolled her eyes. Silently, she finished her drink, then she pulled back her arm to throw the glass at Reuenthal. He jumped, almost dislodging Yang, who made a sleepy sound. The glass never left Magdalena’s hand, though, and she put it down gently on the side table.

“Of course, your father never hit you,” she said. “If I did that to you anywhere else, you wouldn’t flinch.”

“It is the natural reaction to having someone threaten to throw a glass at your head.” Reuenthal went back to stroking Yang’s head, and he relaxed again.

She shook her head. “You are not a very good liar.”

“Oh?”

“If you don’t do something, this house is going to make you crazy.”

“And what do you suggest I do?”

“At the very least, tear out every piece of furniture and decoration in the place, so that it doesn’t look like the exact same house you were in as a kid. He’s worried about you, you know.” She nodded at Yang, who didn’t say anything. Reuenthal realized that Yang had fallen asleep.

“That’s his business, then, and not yours.”

“It’s my business if he’s stressing himself out about you making yourself miserable,” Magdalena said. “Even for just his sake…” She shrugged.

“I don’t have the time to become an interior designer,” Reuenthal said. “It’s fine.”

“It’s worse when you’re alone, I assume?”

“Why is that relevant?”

“You need a wife, Oskar.”

He barked out a laugh. “I told you that I have no interest in getting married.”

She smoothed her fingers across the fabric of her skirt laying across her legs. “People talk, you know.”

“I don’t care.”

“You should.”

“Why?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you think that I, of all people, don’t know what it’s like to have their life ruined by something like that?”

“I’m not interested in court life.”

“I’m not talking about court. I’m talking about your career, and probably Hank’s, too.” She shook her head. “At least find some women to sleep with for a while. To stop the rumors.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I am not drunk enough to be having this conversation with you.”

Magdalena silently reached for his glass. He handed it over, and she refilled it. He was careful not to jostle the sleeping Yang as he leaned back on the couch to drink. He was already fairly drunk, and Magdalena had filled his glass up far too high.

“And you should take it from me,” Magdalena said, after several minutes of silence, during which Reuenthal had almost been able to pretend that she wasn’t there. “Sleeping with women is very pleasant.”

“I don’t see the appeal.”

“I am certain that it’s not that different. Like, mechanically.” She put down her cup in order to make a lewd gesture. When Reuenthal was silent, she asked, “Well, am I wrong?”

“No, you have just succinctly described the least interesting possible way to have sex.” Apparently, he was drunk enough to be having this conversation.

Magdelena half coughed, half laughed. “I was under the impression that that’s what you do with him.” She nodded at Yang.

“And does he tell you every lurid detail?”

Again, that infuriating laugh. “Of course not. He doesn’t tell me anything. But if I ask enough annoying questions, he’ll start to blush and stutter and refuse to answer, and I can do a little process of elimination.”

“You are the devil.”

“Thank you,” she said, then took a sip of her own drink, raising her glass in a cheeky little half-toast. “I do try.”

“Why are you still here?” Reuenthal asked. “Don’t you have a home to go back to?”

“I drove Hank here. I can’t leave without him.”

“Yes, you can.”

“But that would be so rude of me.”

“He is perfectly capable of getting back to his own house in the morning.”

“How scandalous.”

“He did say that you were going to stay here to annoy me.”

“He said that?” She laughed. “Hank, I know you’re just pretending to be asleep. Don’t be such a party pooper.”

“I do not think that he has ever once needed to pretend to fall asleep,” Reuenthal muttered. “I’ve seen him fall asleep in the most inopportune places.”

“I think he is pretending so that I’ll leave you two alone. But I don’t want to leave.”

“Don’t you want to do what he wants?”

She laughed. “Oskar, I’m not you.”

He scowled. “What do you want, then?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just think there’s plenty of entertainment left to be had here tonight.” 

“Such as?”

“You’re too easy to get a rise out of,” she said. “There’s a few things I’m thinking about, and I’m trying to figure out how to best put them together.”

“Oh?”

She shook her head. “You don’t want to hear it, probably.”

“I also don’t want you lurking in my house all night for no reason.”

“But if I had a reason?”

“I find it hard to believe that it would be a good one.”

“We could have some fun,” she said. “Hank wouldn’t mind.”

“I doubt it.”

“You don’t think it would be fun for us to—”

“I don’t even think I want you to finish that sentence.” Reuenthal shook his head, then put his empty glass down. Gently, he shifted Yang’s head off his lap so he could stand.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to put him to bed, then I’m going to kick you out, and then I’m going to drink until I pass out on the couch.”

“Sounds intensely depressing,” Magdalena said.

Reuenthal leaned down and scooped the sleeping Yang up in a bridal carry. He was easy to lift, though Reuenthal was slightly unsteady on his feet. Still, he carried him out of the room and towards the stairs. Yang sleepily nestled himself closer to Reuenthal’s chest.

Magdalena followed behind him as he trooped up the stairs, and he ignored her as he nudged his bedroom door open with his foot and walked inside, the room almost totally black, lit only by the moonlight filtering in through the window, and residual light from downstairs working its way through the hallway.

Gently, Reuenthal laid Yang down on the bed. Magdalena had followed him into the room, but he was ignoring her, because Yang had grabbed on to the sleeve of his shirt, and Reuenthal had to pull his fingers off. As he did, Yang clutched his hand for a second, squeezing it, Reuenthal did think that Yang was still asleep— his expression was too lax and peaceful for him to be awake— but it still gave him pause, and he sat on the edge of the bed, holding Yang’s hand, for just a moment.

Magdalena was going through his closet.

“Hank keeps a uniform here?” She pulled out the captain’s uniform from the closet, easily distinguished from Reuenthal’s rear admiral uniforms by the detached breastplate.

“Stop going through my things.”

“Well, it’s his uniform,” Magdalena said. She held it in her hands, running her fingers over the fabric as she leaned against the closet door.

Reuenthal turned away from her again, and began neatly undoing Yang’s shoes, slipping them off his feet and placing them on the floor. Magdalena watched. He wished she wouldn’t. Reuenthal half wanted to linger at Yang’s side and just watch him sleep, but he wanted to get rid of Magdalena, so he stood, then pulled the blanket up over Yang, and gestured for Magdalena to follow him out.

“I can’t believe you really sleep with that stupid sword right above your head,” she said. “Ridiculous.”

“I like it where it is,” he said. “Now, like I said, it is time for you to go home.”

“Indulge me in one thing,” Magdalena said.

“What?”

“I want to try this on,” she said, holding up Yang’s uniform, which he hadn’t noticed her carrying out of the bedroom in the dark.

“Why?”

“I think it would be fun.”

“Why don’t you try it on when you’re at his house?”

“Gods, I never go to his place if I can help it. Don’t you know how much of a mess it is?”

“I’m well aware.”

“Anyway, he certainly doesn’t keep a spare uniform at my house.”

“Good.”

“Please?”

“And then you’ll leave?”

“If you insist.”

“Fine. Do what you want. I don’t care.” Reuenthal turned and headed back down the stairs, returning to the drawing room where he poured himself another glass of whiskey. He stayed standing as he drank. Magdalena had vanished somewhere, but after a minute or so she reappeared, still wearing her dress.

“Done with playing dressup?”

“No,” she huffed. “Unzip me.”

“What?”

“Unzip me. I can’t get my dress off.”

“How did you get it on?” Reuenthal asked.

“It’s easier in the up direction,” she muttered. “I just don’t want to spend a million years fiddling with it. I’m too drunk.”

She walked up to him and turned around. Reuenthal put his drink down on the side table, then spent a second staring at the stiff back of the dress.

“There’s a hook at the top that you have to undo, and then the zipper should be right there.” Magdalena lifted some of her long black hair out of the way. Tentatively, Reuenthal reached for the neckline of the dress with one hand, then discovered that he would have to use both to undo the hook. Annoyed, he pulled at the fabric until the hook came apart, and then he unzipped the dress as perfunctorily as possible. He was glad that the dress was tight and stiff enough that it essentially stayed in place on Magdalena’s body, though she let out a little breath of relief as it loosened.

“Thank you,” she said, then stepped lightly away and out of the room. Reuenthal returned to drinking. After a few minutes, he heard various doors opening around the house, one of them sounding like the coat closet in the front, and he wondered if Magdalena was absconding with Yang’s uniform. If she did, that would be quite annoying, but at least she would be out of the house. But then Magdalena came back in and he got his first real look at her in Yang’s uniform.

It didn’t quite fit. Yang was a bit taller than she was, and it was obviously far too tight against the chest. She was barefoot, having abandoned her heels and tights, and she had let her hair down from its updo completely. 

“How do I look?” Magdalena asked.

“Fine,” Reuenthal said.

“Come on,” Magdalena said. “Call me sir. Just once.”

“Yes, sir,” Reuenthal said. It alarmed him how easy it was to indulge her.

“Oh, I like that.” She laughed and stepped lightly towards him. “Though I suppose it’s silly for a rear admiral to be calling a captain ‘sir.’” 

“What is it that you want, exactly?” She was playing some kind of game, but he couldn’t tell what it was. On her way towards him, she picked up the bottle of whiskey from the table, contemplated the last finger of it inside, and drank it. Reuenthal frowned at her. “I was going to drink that,” he said.

“I’m sure there’s plenty more where it came from,” she said. “Though if we drink everything that’s left of your father’s, you’ll have to start buying your own, and that would be a terrible thing.” She dropped the bottle back onto the table with a heavy thunk.

“Yes,” Reuenthal said, though he didn’t know what he was agreeing to.

“Hank wanted me to leave so that he could talk to you privately,” Magdalena said. She was very close to him now, and she reached out to trail her fingers down his sleeve. He didn’t move, standing stiff as a board. “But I figured that I shouldn’t leave him here alone.”

“Why not?”

“Because he finally worked up the nerve to tell you something that might make you behave badly,” Magdalena said. “He trusts you not to, but I think you might.”

Reuenthal turned away from her, walking away to the fireplace. “I’d thank you not to insult me.” He stared into the fire.

“I’m not insulting you, just stating a fact.”

“And you’re going to tease me with some secret you think Leigh is keeping from me.” Reuenthal’s lips curled up. “I think he trusts me with more secrets than you know.”

“That may be the case.” Magdalena stepped up behind him. Her hands found his back. “I certainly know what my place is in his heart.”

“Good.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Close your eyes,” she said abruptly.

“Why?”

“Do it.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, mockingly this time. But he obeyed regardless. She pushed him to get him to turn around to face her. When she grabbed at his hand, he pulled it away. “What do you want, Baroness?”

“Give me your hand,” she said.

His eyes were still closed. “Why?”

“I’m going to tell your fortune.”

He snorted. “Didn’t know you believed in that kind of thing.”

“Do you?”

“No,” he said. But when she reached for his hand again, he let her have it, and when she uncurled his fingers from his palm and traced the lines in it, he didn’t stop her. It was a curiously tender touch. “What doom are you reading in there?”

“None,” she said. “It’s too dark in here to tell.” She stopped her tracing but didn’t let go of him, and then after a moment she raised his hand up, turned it over, and slid something cold over his pinky finger.

He opened his eyes.

The gold band, with its central ruby, sat on his finger, while she still delicately held his fingers still. “Hank is going to propose to me,” she said finally. 

Perhaps it was how drunk he was— very— that made his thoughts freeze, that kept him unmoving. “Why?” he asked. It was about the only thing that he could get out.

“Because he has to,” Magdalena said.

“Am I the only person in the world who isn’t compelled to perform this farce?”

She didn’t say anything for a second. “Would it make it better or worse if I told you it’s not a farce?”

He half tried to turn away from her, but she kept a hold of his hand. “Don’t fool yourself.”

“Maybe I am a fool,” she said. “And maybe it is a farce.” She shrugged. “Certainly he’s going to continue to see you.”

Somehow, he was more bitter and jealous from Magdalena’s vocal permissiveness than he was about anything else. He twitched his hand out of her grip and looked at the ring, though he didn’t take it off of his pinky. He touched the stone. 

When he was silent, Magdalena spoke again. “You will probably have to do this too, eventually.”

He took a moment to respond. “Even if I had even the slightest desire to,” he said, “there is not a single sane woman in this universe who would want to be my wife.” He looked around the room, imagining what it would be like for a woman to live in this house, but the only one he could picture was his mother, with his father lurking just out of frame. The thought sickened him, for reasons that he couldn’t quite articulate. Though perhaps that was the alcohol, too. She was silent for a second, so he said, “You truly want to marry Leigh?”

She thought about this for a second. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

“Why?”

“I think, Oskar,” she said, still a touch of humor in her voice, “it is because I love him.”

His face twisted. “Is that so?”

“You don’t believe I’m capable of that?”

“Not in particular, no,” he said.

“Well, I suppose you can think that if you like,” she said. “But it’s true.”

“If I objected, would he stop this ridiculous game?”

“I don’t think he believes it’s a game at all,” she said. And then she looked away from him, into the fire. “But yes, he would. I’m sure that’s why he’s barely worked up the nerve to ask you.”

Reuenthal’s jaw clenched. “So what is the point of him asking, if he knows I’d object?”

She looked at him again. “I don’t think you’d tell him not to do it,” she said. “I think if he had come to you about this you would have told him to do as he likes, and kicked him out of your house.”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“Am I wrong?” she asked.

“He can do as he likes,” Reuenthal said. “I have no claim over him.”

She let out a huff of breath and shook her head. “He is very lucky that I have his best interests at heart,” she said.

“I want him to be happy,” Reuenthal said. “I don’t think that marrying you will do that.”

“Why not?”

“Has marrying a woman ever made anyone happy?”

“Yes,” Magdalena said flatly. “Plenty of people. And it could be plenty plus one, if he marries me.”

“I’ve never seen it.”

“You haven’t been looking.”

He scoffed and looked back at the coffee table, double checking that the whiskey bottle was empty. He wanted another drink, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to pull another bottle out of the cabinet.

“Have you really resigned yourself to being miserable, Oskar? Do you think that’s your destiny?” She reached for his hand again, and he grabbed her wrist to stop her.

“I’m neither miserable nor resigned,” he said. “I think you’re confused.”

“Am I?”

“All through dinner, whenever you mentioned this little game of yours, he was the one who looked resigned.”

“I think you’re misreading the signals, Oskar.”

“I don’t think this even belongs to him. I think you’re trying to trick me, for some joke.” He pulled the ring off his finger. He held it up to the light, then moved to toss it into the fire. She let out a yelp of surprise and grabbed his hand before he could let go of it, gripping tight with wide eyes and fingernails that dug into his skin. It was the first genuine reaction he thought he had ever gotten out of her, and he was smugly satisfied by it.

“It is his,” she said. She tried to take the ring back out of his hand, but he slid it back onto his finger. He wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, but she relaxed when he did that.

“You’ve told me what you wanted to tell me. What more do you have to do?”

“I think there’s a part of me that wants to convince you that it would be a good marriage,” she said. “I don’t want him to ruin things, so I have to fix them before he does.” She wasn’t making much sense.

“I don’t know how you could convince me,” he said.

“Maybe I thought I could show you how we could make each other happy,” she said.

“And how would you do that?”

“I have an idea, if you’ll indulge me,” she said.

“Indulge you how?”

“You just have to play along,” she said. “Simple.”

“Why should I?”

“He would want you to understand,” Magdalena said. “He’d want you to listen to me.”

Reuenthal scowled. “That does not mean that I must.”

“But will you?”

He looked at her. “You haven’t explained anything. I’m not really in the mood for games, Baroness.”

“It’s not a game,” she said. “It’s a farce.”

He frowned, but she had convinced him enough that he said, “Fine.”

Magdalena nodded. “Just play along.” She hesitated for a long moment, looking into his eyes, then took his hand again and dropped down to one knee. “Magdalena von Westpfale,” she said, grasping his hand with a sudden urgency. “Would you do me the honor of being my wife?”

Reuenthal was nauseated as soon as Magdalena’s intentions here became clear. It was a desperately stupid game, the logical part of Reuenthal’s mind screamed. He shouldn’t allow himself to participate in this. He almost ripped his hand away from her, kicked her out of the house, but she had played him.

It was the fact that she was in his uniform that did it, he thought. He hadn’t ever considered it before, so impossible was it, but he realized now that he would have given anything for the real Yang to be here with him, on his knees and asking for something impossible. This simulacrum was close enough to be disturbing and fascinating, in a way that he couldn’t refuse outright. 

He closed his eyes. “Hank,” he said.

“Yes,” Hank prompted, or answered. It didn’t really matter.

“Yes,” he said. “I will.”

Hank’s fingers tightened on his, and then he felt him press a kiss to them, first to the ring, then to his knuckles. Reuenthal moved his hand, touching his face, and Hank stood. His hand slid up Reuenthal’s other arm, then to his neck.

“You gonna kiss me, Maggie?” Hank asked.

Reuenthal had never once kissed Hank. Hank had been dismissed as an illusion before Reuenthal had even gotten a chance to try, a shell for people to look at. He felt like a schoolboy again, living the fantasies that had occupied his mind the winter break of his first year at the IOA. He had been in this house, had dreamed of seeing Hank to keep him sane while trapped here. It was easy to return to that state of mind, too easy.

Eyes still closed, he leaned forward. Their lips met. Hank pulled Reuenthal towards him, desperate and hungry; his mouth tasted like whiskey and his breath was erratic. “Touch me,” Hank said. “Please.”

He did. His hand tangled in Hank’s black hair, traced down his back, stroked at his waist. All the while Hank pressed himself into him, his own hands tugging Reuenthal’s shirt out from its neat tuck, undoing his belt so that he could slip his hand through the waistband of Reuenthal’s pants. 

Reuenthal couldn’t think properly through the haze of alcohol and the way that Hank’s tongue was insistent in his mouth. His heart was beating wildly, thrumming along with the thrice-illicit dream. All his senses were keyed up to their maximum, attentive to every touch of Hank’s and every sound of their breathing.

Creaking footsteps came through the ceiling— his father— no— his eyes flew open.

Reuenthal shoved Magdalena away, the illusion broken, bile rising in his throat. 

“It’s not so bad,” she said. “I could make him happy. You know that.”

There was a part of him that wanted to continue the charade, to see how far it would go, but Yang was walking around upstairs— he heard the pipes rattle as he opened the bathroom tap— and that was too much. He looked at the ring on his finger, then pried it off and held it out to her.

She took it and slipped it into her pocket.

“Have I managed to convince you?” she asked.

“Stay the night or go home, I don’t really care,” Reuenthal said, not answering the question and doing his belt back up. “I’m going to bed.”

She let out a breathy little laugh. “I’ll stay,” she said. She leaned on his arm as he walked out of the drawing room and up the stairs. It was ridiculous.

Yang met them in the hallway, yawning. He had taken off the rest of his clothes at some point between Reuenthal putting him in bed and now, so he was standing around in his boxers and undershirt. Yang didn’t seem to think there was anything unusual about the way Magdalena was touching him, or the way she was wearing Yang’s stolen uniform. Or, if he did, he made no reaction or comment.

“What time is it?” Yang asked.

“Two-thirty,” Reuenthal answered. 

“You leaving, Maggie?” Yang asked.

“No, I’ll stay,” she said. “Too drunk to drive home.”

Reuenthal pulled open the door to the master bedroom. “Here,” he said.

“Not gonna let me stay with you,” she said with a smile. “I see how it is.”

“You are pushing your luck, Baroness,” Reuenthal said. He pulled his arm off of his, and she went into the bedroom. 

“See you in the morning, Hank,” she said.

“Night, Maggie,” Yang replied.

She closed the door. “Sorry I fell asleep,” Yang said. “She wasn’t too annoying, I hope.”

“No,” Reuenthal said. “She just wanted to play dressup.”

* * *

Even though Reuenthal had gotten less sleep than Yang, he still woke up first, to the sun spilling in the bedroom window, glinting off the snow. He rolled over in bed to look at him, the way his mouth was loosely open and his hair fell across his face. Reuenthal lingered for a few minutes, then reached out and brushed Yang’s cheek with his thumb.

Yang made a sleepy noise, then twitched, waking up and cracking his eyes open to look at Reuenthal.

“Morning,” Reuenthal said.

“Mmm,” Yang replied. “What time is it?”

“Nine.”

“Shoulda let me sleep.”

“Thought I was curing you of your laziness,” Reuenthal said. “Don’t you have things to do today?”

“Maybe,” Yang said. “I haven’t thought about that yet though. And I don’t really want to.” He flopped over onto his back, hands beneath his head, staring up at the ceiling. “Is Maggie still here?”

“Still asleep, I think.”

“Oh, good.”

He was silent for a long time. Reuenthal wasn’t actually in a hurry to get out of bed, so he just waited to see what Yang would do. As he grew more awake, tension shifted in Yang’s body, his hands tugging at his own hair, and he grew stiffer and stiffer in the bed next to Reuenthal.

“Oskar,” Yang said after a minute.

And here it was, Reuenthal thought, that particular twist in Yang’s voice when he was about to say something that Reuenthal didn’t want to hear. “Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking about a lot of things, recently.”

“Such as?”

“Should I marry Maggie?”

Reuenthal closed his eyes. He was tempted, beyond tempted, to lash out, to make this miserable for the both of them. But he didn’t want to prove Magdalena right, at the very least. “You can do what you want,” Reuenthal said finally, the words coming with great difficulty. “I don’t own you, Hank von Leigh.”

Yang flinched at the name. “I know it’s not something you want,” he said. “But nothing has to change, really. Maggie, she…”

“She doesn’t even know your name, does she?” Reuenthal asked.

“No,” Yang said, startled at the question. “I never… It never really came up.”

Reuenthal just nodded. 

“Will you— if I do propose to her— will you be alright? With that?”

“And if I wasn’t?”

“I wouldn’t do it,” Yang said. “I wouldn’t want to ruin… what we have.”

“And what will I be left with, Wen-li?”

Yang caught on to the message, the old familiar code, and relaxed a little. “You’ll have me,” Yang said. “If that’s enough for you.”

“It has to be, doesn’t it?”

Yang’s breath caught in his throat. “I wish it didn’t.”

“You can marry her,” Reuenthal said. “If you must.”

Yang rolled over on his side to look at Reuenthal. “Thank you.”

Reuenthal just shook his head and closed his eyes. Tentatively, as if afraid he would be swatted away, Yang touched Reuenthal’s forehead, brushing his hair towards his temple. Reuenthal didn’t move except to turn his face towards Yang, which was taken as a sign of acceptance. Yang’s breath steadied. 

* * *

He cooked them breakfast, eggs and sausage, and Yang seemed happy, glancing at him every few moments with a small, secret smile. The conversation around the breakfast table was light, all strangeness of the night before forgotten or ignored. If Magdalena had a hangover, she was pretending that she didn’t.

“You should probably go,” Reuenthal said as they finished eating. “I don’t know if I can be having you lurk in my house all day, as well.”

“Hmph,” Magdalena said. “And here I thought you were glad for the company.”

“If I wanted a woman to move into my house,” Reuenthal said, “I would find one.”

She laughed. “I hope you do, Oskar.”

Reuenthal just shook his head.

After breakfast, he walked them over to the front door. He could see Yang fiddling with something in his jacket pocket when he put it on at the door. It must have been the ring that Magdalena had stolen the night before. Reuenthal looked silently and pointedly at the hand in Yang’s pocket, raised an eyebrow. Yang nodded.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Magdalena was saying. “You’d almost think it isn’t going to be New Year’s soon. Will you be around for that, Oskar?”

“No,” he said. “My leave is almost over. I’m heading out next week.”

“Pity,” she said. “I think the parties are going to be spectacular this year.”

“Perhaps.”

“Are you ready, Maggie?” Yang asked.

“I am indeed,” she said. “If I don’t see you, Oskar, take care of yourself.”

“I will, Baroness.”

He turned to Yang. “Hank,” he said. Yang looked up at him, startled. Reuenthal couldn’t finish the sentence, and just nodded. Yang smiled.

“Come on, Maggie,” Yang said.

Reuenthal held open the door for the both of them, and they headed out into the sunny but cold December air. Magdalena’s car was parked far down the driveway, and they walked to it arm in arm. He watched them go, their footsteps glittering across the ice.

As Magdalena stood in front of the driver’s side door, Hank put his hand on her arm and stopped her. Yang gave a glance back at the house, though Reuenthal wasn’t sure if he saw him watching from the window. 

And then Hank knelt in the snow and pulled out the ring from his pocket. 

They were too far away for Reuenthal to hear what was being said, but he watched the scene play out. 

Magdalena held out her hand, and he slipped the ring on her finger. She touched his face, helped him to his feet, and embraced him, standing on her tiptoes and leaning on him heavily. Hank pushed her away just enough that he could look into her eyes, smiling. When he kissed her, Reuenthal turned from the window and walked back into the darkness of his father’s house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from [ "Linda Blair Was Born Innocent" by the Mountain Goats ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyrQCY4rzDg). empty hearts on fire... hungry for love! ready to drown!
> 
> i hope none of you hate me after this chapter haha. I feel like i may be losing your trust some 560k words into this nonsense. I hope not though >.>
> 
> much of this chapter is the spiritual twin to "Towards the Tail-End of the Age That's Almost Finished", though the dinner party scene and much after it was written long before that story haha. 
> 
> god there's actually... a lot I want to say. but maybe I should practice the art of Shutting The Fuck Up. but if you want to get me to wax on at length about literally anything in here. just let me know.
> 
> I would love to hear about what you thought of this little story! I certainly hope you enjoyed it :3c
> 
> thank you so much for reading, and thank you to em and lydia for the beta read! you can find all my other nonsense @ gayspaceopera.carrd.co

**Author's Note:**

> Title of this fic is from ["Abandoning My Father Talking Blues" by the Mountain Goats.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT-ONBZ1pVU)
> 
> This fic was written for "A Momentary Ripple in the Stream", a fanzine for Wheel Inside a Wheel. Check it out at bit.ly/WIAWripple . thank you so much to everyone who made art for it. it's all extremely beautiful and i am extremely ;0; about it
> 
> thank you very very much to em and lydia for the beta read!


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